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 duringinfectious diseases may determine the failure or success of the immune response. This is particularlytrue for an infection like tuberculosis, in which pathogen and immune system coexist in a continuousinteraction. Hormonal changes are likely to occur since some of the cytokines produced during thisdisease could affect endocrine mechanisms that, in turn, influence the course ofinfectious/inflammatory processes. This communication pattern exists due to the fact that cytokineproducing cells as well as hormone-producing cells share common receptors and ligands. Profilinghormone 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 infectionfrom repository plasma samples collected over a period of time at the Armauer Hansen ResearchInstitute (AHRI) laboratory.
Methods: A Comparative cross sectional study was conducted to analyze the levels of plasmaendocrine hormones in randomly selected stored plasma samples from September to December, 2018GC, at AHRI, Addis Ababa Ethiopia. A total of 226 plasma samples, collected from pulmonary andextra pulmonary TB patients, particularly TB lymphadenitis cases, close household contacts of PTBpatients and leprosy patients, were retrieved from AHRI biorepository using convenient sampling andevaluated for selected endocrine hormones (DHEA, cortisol, testosterone, estradiol, growth hormoneand 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 PTBpatients 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 (LTBIuninfected 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, whereasthe 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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Hormone, Tuberculosis, immunity latency, disease, infection