Journal
TUBERCULOSIS
Volume 89, Issue 1, Pages 91-94Publisher
CHURCHILL LIVINGSTONE
DOI: 10.1016/j.tube.2008.09.001
Keywords
Tuberculosis; Cytokines; Antibodies; Immunotherapy; Relapse
Categories
Funding
- University of Palermo
- Italian Ministry for University and Research
- The Dunhill Medical Trust
- London and The Wellcome Trust London
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We report that a recently developed combined immunotherapy (CIT) has the capacity to prevent a spontaneous relapse of replicating Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacilli in the lungs of BALB/c, C57BI/6 or C3H/HeJ strains of mice, following 4 weeks of non-sterilising treatment with isoniazid and rifampicin. The CIT regimen, represented by recombinant IFN gamma, anti-alpha crystalline monoclonal IgA antibody and IL-4 neutralizing polyclonal antibody. reduced the 8-week relapse of viable bacterial Counts in the lungs most significantly, when CIT was inoculated during the 5th week post infection, i.e. during the 3rd week of chemotherapy. Although CIT enhanced lung granuloma area, nitric oxide, cytokine and chemokine levels in lung washings significantly, these could not be directly associated with the beneficial effect of CIT on the degree of relapse in the lungs. These results represent a proof-of-principle, that the described CIT. when combined with chemotherapy, could have potential for future development of a shorter regimen of tuberculosis treatment. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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