1Mervat A.El-Taukhy, 2Suzan M.
Salama, 3Seham A. Abou-Shousha 4Saad S. Ismail and 1Marium
Saleh
Departments of 1applied medical chemistry,
2Biochemistry, 3Immunology and 4Pharmacology,
Medical Research Institute, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt.
Chronic alcoholism
complicated by alcoholic liver disease (ALD) is characterized by activation of
inflammatory responses. Alcohol intake increases gut permeability allowing
substances such as lipopolysaccharides (LPS) which are strong inducers of
proinflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-a) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) to enter the
circulation. Vitamin C is an antioxidant with many cellular activities seemed
to protect cells against alcohol-induced peroxidation. In present study, serum
levels of TNF-a and IL-6 were
measured by ELISA method in four groups of albino rats, each group consists of
10 rats. Group (I) was untreated group (control), group (II) was treated with
ethanol, group (III) was treated with ascorbic acid and group (IV) was treated
with ethanol + ascorbic acid. Results revealed that both TNF- a and IL-6 serum levels were very highly
significantly increased in group (II) and (IV) than control group (1) (P <
0.001). Group (III) showed significantly (P < 0.001) decreased TNF-a serum level than group (II) and (IV) while it
showed significantly (P < 0.001) increased IL-6 serum level than control
group (I) and also significantly decreased IL-6 serum level than group (IV).
Serum IL-6 level was significantly (P < 0.01) decreased in group (III) than
(II). These results indicate that serum levels of the proinflammatory cytokines
TNF-a and IL-6 may
serve as predictive biomarkers for progression of ALD. In addition, using TNF-a neutralizing agent (or its antagonist)/or IL-6
as an anti-apoptotic factor could be useful as a treatment strategy of ALD.