ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Meher Rizvi1# , M. Azam1#, Asfia Sultan1, Fatima Khan1, Indu Shukla1, Abida Malik1 and M.R. Ajmal2
1Department of Microbiology, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India.
2Department of Medicine, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India.
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2012;6(Spl. Edn.: October):01-07
© The Author(s). 2012
Received: 04/03/2012 | Accepted: 10/06/2012 | Published: 31/10/2012
Abstract

Leptospirosis is a worldwide zoonosis caused by pathogenic Leptospira and is characterized by a broad spectrum of clinical manifestations of varying severity ranging from inapparent infection to fulminant, fatal disease. Although several components of this organism have been identified, the molecular mechanisms underlying pathogenesis of this infectious disease are still poorly understood. Besides, direct injury by microbial factors, cytokines produced in response to infection have been proposed to be involved in pathogenesis of leptospirosis. The present study was done to document the prevalence of leptospira induced acute hepatitis and to estimate the levels of Interleukin-10 in these patients. 247 consecutive cases with symptoms of acute hepatitis and 30 healthy controls were enrolled in the study and detailed clinical history was elicited from them. ELISA for HAV, HBV, HCV and HEV were performed to rule out common viral etiology of hepatitis. IgM antibodies to leptospira were detected by ELISA. IL-10 levels were estimated in leptospira positive cases by ELISA. Out of 247 cases of acute hepatitis 46 (18.62%) were observed to be positive for IgM antibodies for leptospira. ALT, AST, ASP was raised in majority of patients. IL-10 was found to be elevated in a large majority of cases 56.52% (26/46). Patients with more severe symptoms were associated with higher levels of IL-10.

Keywords

Leptospirosis, IL-10, Hepatitis, ELISA

Article Metrics

Article View: 674

Share This Article

© The Author(s) 2012. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.