Interaction between Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Human Host: Role of Cytokines in Pathogenesis and Treatment Monitoring

Abstract

Tuberculosis is one of the most prevalent infections of human beings. According to WHO Global tuberculosis report 2016, there were 10.4 million new incidents of TB cases worldwide , and 580,000 new cases of multidrug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis. Monitoring the effectiveness of tuberculosis treatment and timely diagnosis of latent tuberculosis is an important problem for immunological research. Interaction of M. tuberculosis and the human immune system begins with phagocytosis of mycobacteria by macrophages and activate the immune response through the cytokines and chemokines release. The balance of proinflammatory and immunoregulatory cytokines and chemokines production may reflect the level of host-parasite interaction (e.g., elimination or persistence of the microbe). The review presents current clinical trends in studies on proinflammatory (IL-12, IL-1, INF-II, TNF-α) and immunoregulatory (IL-10 and TGF-β) cytokines, as well as matrix metalloproteases and hemoxygenase 1 to characterize the success of antituberculous che-motherapy. Monitoring the effectiveness of tuberculosis treatment will require the use new combinations of cytokines, chemokines, and nonspecific inflammatory factors which combinations have not yet been determined. The most promising area is studying of immuno-regulatory cytokines, (e.g., IL-10, TGF-β), cell migration factors (e.g., IP-10/CXCL-10, MIG/ CXCL/9), and markers of nonspecific inflammation (e.g., HO-1, SAA and MMP-1,3,9).