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Flow Cytometric Analysis of The Phagocytic Cells in Active Pulmonary Tuberculosis1Nahed I. Gomaa, 2Amal S. Ahmed, 1Gehane S. EL-Hadidy and 1Mahmoud K. Mansour 1Microbiology and Immunology, 2Clinical Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt. Phagocyte function in the presence of tuberculosis (TB) assumes increasing importance in Africa, where TB is endemic and bacterial super infection is common. In this study a whole-blood flow cytometric assay was used to analyze the phagocytic capacity of granulocytes and monocytes in patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis. The assay measures the proportion of fluorescence-labelled cells with ingested bacteria and the capacity (fluorescence intensity) of each cell to phagocytose the bacteria. Fifteen patients and 10 healthy controls were assessed. The mean percentage of phagocytosing granulocytes was 82.5% (± 16%) in the TB patients, while in the control group it was 97.1% (± 2.5 %) (P<0.01). For monocytes, the mean percentage of phagocytozing cells was 57.6% (± 26%) in the TB group as compared to 85.8% (± 9.3 %) in the control group (P<0.001). On the other hand, granulocytes and monocytes from the TB patients showed significant reduction in the phagocytic capacity as shown by decreased mean florescence intensity (P<0.001). It is concluded that the phagocytic function in active pulmonary TB is impaired possibly contributing to the enhanced susceptibility to opportunistic infections in these patients. |
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