Original Article


The expression and clinical significance of serum IL-17 in patients with primary biliary cirrhosis

Qiannan Sun, Qian Wang, Ning Feng, Yan Meng, Bin Li, Demei Luo, Xiaoqian Shang, Jie Lv, Ahmad Maqsuod Monsaf, Changmin Wang, Xiumin Ma

Abstract

Background: We aimed to investigate the expression and clinical significance of interleukin 17 (IL-17) in patients with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC).
Methods: PBC patients (n=127), patients without PBC (n=100) were selected from January 2015 to December 2015.The measure of IL-17 level was performed by cytometric beads array (CBA), immunohistochemistry and real-time PCR (QRT-PCR).
Results: The expression levels of serum IL-17, IL-6, IFN-γ, TNF-α and IL-10 in PBC groups were significantly higher than control group, a positively correlation between IL-17 and ALT, ALP, GGT, CIV was observed in PBC patients (r=0.35, P=0.013; r=0.373, P=0.008; r=0.337, P=0.017; r=0.349, P=0.021). In addition, IL-17 mRNA expression level in PBC group was higher than control group. Immunohistochemical results suggest that positive cells did not appear in normal tissues, while they appeared in the PBC liver tissue, mainly in the bile duct.
Conclusions: This study shows that IL-17 over expressed in PBC patients, it played a pro-inflammatory effect in the pathogenesis of PBC, most probably as a targeting drug research.

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