Negative Association of IL-33 Plasma Levels and Schistosomiasis Infection in a Site of Polyparasitism
Division of Immunology members who co-authored the paper were Dr Justin Komguep Nono (research group Immunobiology of Helminth infections) and Dr Frank Brombacher.
Schistosomiasis ranks as the second most important parasitic disease worldwide in terms of public health impact with around ~90% of cases in sub-Saharan Africa. The world health organization has encouraged research helping on defining parameters that would refine the monitoring of treatment effectiveness in reducing the disease prevalence and associated morbidity in areas subjected to mass drug administration, the principal control tool of the global anti-schistosomiasis control/elimination strategy.
In our study, we investigated the association of plasma levels of IL-33, a mucosal alarmin known to elicit type-2 immunity, with schistosomiasis infection and/or liver fibrosis in school children from an endemic area in a well-characterized foci of schistosomiasis in rural Cameroon where other infectious diseases (malaria, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C) are also common. Very few investigations, on the association of this cytokine with hepatic schistosomiasis infection and liver disease in a context of mixed infection were performed.
We found a considerable prevalence of the above-mentioned diseases (schistosomiasis, malaria, hepatitis B and C) and also cases of coinfection of any sort. Our major finding is that of a significant propensity of schistosomiasis-infected hosts to have lower plasma IL-33 levels when compared to non-infected hosts. Notably, the strongest reduction was observed in participants with the highest burden of S. mansoni eggs indicating a solid and hitherto unreported negative association between schistosomiasis infection and plasma levels of IL-33.
Such a marker can be used as a tool for monitoring S. mansoni infection in site of polyparasitism in Schistosomiasis endemic areas.
This work was funded by the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) through the grant TMA2016CDF-1571 and a recent FLAIR (Future Leaders – African Independent Research) fellowship from the UK Royal Society (FLR/R1/191058) awarded at my Supervisor Dr Justin Komguep Nono.
Read the paper - Negative Association of Interleukin-33 Plasma Levels and Schistosomiasis Infection in a Site of Polyparasitism in Rural Cameroon
Article by Severin Donald Kamdem