Comparison of Cytokine Expression in Multiple Sclerosis Patients and Healthy Volunteers

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease with the impaired balance of CD4 cells. This trial is a descriptive study to evaluate the expression of CD4 cell cytokines, interleukin (IL) ‑2, IL‑4, IL‑17, TGF‑β, and respectively related transcription factors, including T-bet, GATA3, RORγt and FoxP3 in MS patients. Sixteen relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) patients receiving interferon beta (IFN-β)-1a in the stable phase of the disease and 14 healthy control volunteers (HCs) were enrolled in this study. The expression of cytokines and transcription factors was evaluated in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of patients using real time PCR. The results of this study showed that the expression of IL-2 (P≤0.05), IL-4 (P≤0.05), IL-17 (P≤0.05) and RORγt (P≤0.01) in PBMCs of RRMS patients were significantly higher than those in HCs. The expression of TGF‑β, GATA3, and FoxP3 were higher but the RORγt expression was lower in the patients than HCs without reaching significant value. Observed results indicated differences in immune system cytokines of healthy volunteers and the patients that were in the stable phase and under immunomodulatory therapy especially in proinflammatory mediators. Therefore, any therapeutic strategy to restore the immune system balance is desirable in RRMS patients.