Assessment of Selected Endocrine Hormone Profiles in different stages of Tuberculosis infection
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Date
2019-07
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Addis Abeba University
Abstract
Background: Hormones often act as immunomodulators. Immune and endocrine interaction during
infectious diseases may determine the failure or success of the immune response. This is particularly
true for an infection like tuberculosis, in which pathogen and immune system coexist in a continuous
interaction. Hormonal changes are likely to occur since some of the cytokines produced during this
disease could affect endocrine mechanisms that, in turn, influence the course of
infectious/inflammatory processes. This communication pattern exists due to the fact that cytokine
producing cells as well as hormone-producing cells share common receptors and ligands. Profiling
hormone levels in the different stages of TB infection or disease could therefore provide important
insight in the understanding of the disease that could ultimately contribute in the development of
prognostic biomarker pools.
Objective: to assess selected endocrine hormone profiles in different stages of tuberculosis infection
from repository plasma samples collected over a period of time at the Armauer Hansen Research
Institute (AHRI) laboratory.
Methods: A Comparative cross sectional study was conducted to analyze the levels of plasma
endocrine hormones in randomly selected stored plasma samples from September to December, 2018
GC, at AHRI, Addis Ababa Ethiopia. A total of 226 plasma samples, collected from pulmonary and
extra pulmonary TB patients, particularly TB lymphadenitis cases, close household contacts of PTB
patients and leprosy patients, were retrieved from AHRI biorepository using convenient sampling and
evaluated for selected endocrine hormones (DHEA, cortisol, testosterone, estradiol, growth hormone
and leptin) using ELISA. Data has been entered, cleaned and analyzed using GraphPad Prism 7 and
SPSS version 20.0.
Results: Plasma cortisol level was significantly higher in PTB, TBLN and leprosy patients compared
to both LTBI uninfected groups (P < 0.0001, P = 0.0011, P = 0.0044, respectively) and infected groups
(P < 0.0001, P = 0.0135, respectively). The levels of DHEA and leptin were significantly low in PTB
patients compared to LTBI uninfected groups (P < 0.0446, P < 0.0001, respectively). Similarly, levels
of leptin was significantly lower in TBLN and leprosy patients compared to healthy controls (LTBI
uninfected groups) (P = 0.0023, P < 0.0001, respectively). On the other hand, plasma levels of DHEA,
estradiol, testosterone and leptin significantly increased in PTB patients following treatment, whereas
the concentration of cortisol and human growth hormone declined significantly after treatment (P=
0.0001, P=0.03, P=0.0003, P=0.002, P=0.045, P=0.045 respectively).
Conclusion: TB Patients are characterized by increased plasma levels of cortisol and decreased DHEA
and leptin levels. Our study also indicated that treatment results in increased DHEA, leptin, estradiol
and testosterone and decreased cortisol and human growth hormone among pulmonary TB patients.
This alteration of hormones during TB disease suggests that hormones might influence the immune
response to M. tuberculosis and therefore the course of the disease.
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Keywords
Hormone, Tuberculosis, immunity latency, disease, infection