1Ghada F. Helaly and 2Lobna A. Abou Shamaa
Departments of 1Microbiology and 2Immunology Medical Research Institute, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt.
Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-a) is an immunoregulatory cytokine
with a wide range of biological effects. It is secreted mainly by activated
monocytes/macrophages and lymphocytes in a variety of pathological conditions
including viral hepatitis. The objectives of the study were to measure serum
TNF-α levels in patients
infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and estimate the relation between serum
TNF-α levels and the presence
or absence of HCV viraemia as well as serum alanine and aspartate
aminotransferases’ (ALT and AST) activities, which are considered as parameters
of liver injury. Twenty HCV infected patients along with ten healthy control
subjects were enrolled in this study. HCV infected patients were tested for the
presence of HCV viraemia through carrying out nested reverse
transcription-polymerase chain reaction assay. Serum levels of TNF-α were assayed using an enzyme
immunoassay and Liver biochemistry in the form of determination of serum ALT
and AST activities were done for all cases. TNF-a levels were dramatically elevated in HCV infected
patients, in spite of their normal serum aminotransferases’ activities as
compared with healthy control subjects [27.31 ± 10.75 vs. 7.13 ± 1.85 pg/ml (p=0.0001),
respectively]. Although, serum levels of TNF-α were slightly elevated in viraemic than non-viraemic HCV infected
patients, yet this difference did not reach the statistically significant level
[28.59 ± 13.99 vs. 26.03 ± 6.70 pg/ml (p= 0.3)], also Serum TNF-a
levels were not significantly correlated with serum ALT and AST activities in
HCV infected patients. It is
concluded that measurement of TNF-a
levels in HCV infected patients could reflect liver injury despite normal
levels of liver enzymes and its serum level is not affected by viral activity.