THE EGYPTIAN JOURNAL OF MEDICAL SCIENCES VOL. 28-No. 1- JUNE 2007 (ISSN: 1110-0540) 28. Egypt. J. Med. Sci. 28 (1) June 2007: 455-466. INTERLEUKIN- TWELVE (IL-12) IN TOXOPLASMOSIS CASES By Ali E. Ali, Azza M.S., El-Hamshary, Amina I. Abdel -Maboud , Rabab F. Mohamcd, Amany EI-Fakahany and Email Abdel Rahman Department of Parasitology, Faculty of medicine, Benha University ABSTRACT One hundred and fifty random samples from in patients at the depart¬ment of gynacology and obstetrics were screened by indirect heamagglu-tination antibody (IHA) technique for toxoplasmosis. The positive, 67 (44.6%) were divided according to history of previous abortion to group I (37 cases, 7 cases were neglected) with no history of abortion and group II (30 cases) with a history of abortion. A third negative group (10) was taken as control. The 3 groups were tested by ELISA for anti-Toxoplasma IgG, IgM antibodies and IL-12 level. IgG anti¬bodies were dected in 83% (25) in group I and 70% (21) in group II. IgM antibodies were detected in 6.6% (2) in group I only. There was no significant difference between mean (OD) of IL-12 in groups I, II and III. There was Insignificant difference between mean IL-12 (OD), age, gravidity and parity. There was a significant difference be¬tween IL-12 mean OD, positive and negative IgG, anti-Toxoplasma anti¬body cases. There was insignificant difference between IL-12 mean (OD) and positive and negative anti-Toxoplasma IgM antibodies cases. It was concluded that the difference of statistical significance between mean (OD) of (IL-12) and positive and nega¬tive anti-Toxoplasma IgG antibody cases indicate their importance in screening for early control, minimiz¬ing complication and improving prog- nosis. INTRODUCTION Toxoplasma gondii infection oc¬curs worldwide, most infections are rela¬tively asymptomatic, the most severe disease occurs in the developing fetus and in immunocompromised host (Jain et al., 1998). During pregnancy, Toxoplasma gondii infection of the mother may lead to spontaneous abor¬tion, preterm delivery, intrauterine growth retardation or congenital infec¬tion of the fetus (Nowakowska et al., 2005). The interaction of protozoan para¬sites with innate host defenses is criti¬cally determining the character of subse¬quent infection (Kolbekova et al., 2007). Infection with Toxoplasma gondii in¬duces strong cell- mediated immunity characterized by a highly polarized T-helper 1 cell response, the acute phase of infection is marked by elevated levels of interferon - gamma (IFN-y) and inter-leukin -12 (IL-12) (Nickdel Mohammad |
