The influence of interleukin-13/interleukin-4 receptor-alpha signaling in the pathology of tuberculosis
L Heitmann, T Schreiber, T Thye, ANJ Mckenzie, F Brombacher, RD Horstmann, CG Meyer, S Ehlers, C Hoelscher · Pneumologie · 2010 · Heft 01
Bibliografische Angaben
Zusammenfassung
Reactivation and granuloma necrosis (GN) are pivotal events of post-primary tuberculosis (TB). To date, there is no clear evidence whether interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-13 are involved in the pathogenesis of the disease. Therefore, we genotyped polymorphisms in IL-4, IL-13 and the IL-4 receptor alpha-chain (IL-4R alpha) in patients with pulmonary TB from Ghana. A structural variant of the IL-4R alpha, which has been shown to be associated with an increased transcription of the gene, was found to be significantly associated with increased cavity size indicating a prominent role of the IL-4R alpha in human GN. In Mtb-…
