Features of the specific humoral response and cytokine regulation in whooping cough in children

In the article there is presented the comparative analysis of the character of the specific humoral response to pertussis in dependence on the age, terms of the disease and vaccination history in 279 patients, among which 114 patients were under 1 and 165 patients - over 1 year of the age. In the study of the level of the production of antibodies of different isotypes in unvaccinated patients of different age in dependence on the terms of medical examination it has been revealed that in the patients under the age of 1 year there was typical the low production of all the classes of antibodies in any time of the disease, especially IgM. It has been shown that in babies aged from 0 to 3 and from 4 to 6 months old the production level of these immunoglobulins in examination at the early stages of the disease was established to be considerably lower than in the patients at the age from 7 to 12 months, and was equal to 1,1 ± 0,4 and 1,5 ± 0,1 U/ml versus 9,1 ± 3,8 U/ml correspondingly, (p<0,5). However in these age groups there were no revealed significant differences in the dynamics of the production of IgA and IgG. In the study of the features of the production of antibodies of different classes in patients with pertussis in dependence on the vaccination history in the vaccinated patients the mean concentration of IgG antibodies was shown to be considerably higher than in the unvaccinated cases at all the times of the disease. The studies have shown that the humoral response to pertussis is accompanied by the active production of anti-inflammatory cytokines IL-4 and IL-10 at the second or third week of the disease, which provides Th-2-dependent regulation of the immune response beginning with the early stages of the disease. Peculiarities of the functioning of the cytokine network were largely determined by the vaccination status of the patients.

pertussis, antibodies, immunoglobulins, immunity