Changes Of Serum IL-10 And Ag-NORs Of T Lymphocytes In Patients With Acute Cerebral Stroke

Stroke is a common cause of death and disability to human health. A growing body of evidence points out the important role of inflammatory mechanisms in the pathophysiology of stroke. interleukin-10 (IL-10) is an important cytokine with multiple biologic activity produced by many cell populations. IL-10 has anti-inflammatory action. It can inhibit the formation of atherosclerotic plaques and the inflammatory reaction and immunologic injury in the process of stroke development, so it has neuroprotective effect. Nucleolar organizer regions associated proteins (Ag-NORs) is a kind of protein that regulate the transcription of rRNA. It is important for the formation of ribosome and the synthesis of the intra-cellular protein, so it can reflect the cellular function. T lymphocyte is the main effector cell of cellular immunity. Therefore, detecting the content of Ag-NORs of T lymphocyte is one of the reliable methods that can reflect the cellular immunity after stroke. Objective: To study the changes of serum IL-10 and Ag-NORs of T lymphocytes in patients with acute cerebral stroke and the correlation of IL-10, Ag-NORs and stroke. By detecting the content of serum IL-10 and Ag-NORs of T lymphocytes, we hope to understand the cellular immunity after stroke onsets, evaluate the potential value of IL-10 for the treatment of stroke and enhance the therapeutic efficacy in other respects.Methods: Forty-four patients with ischemic stroke and thirty patients with cerebral hemorrhage within the first 3 days after stroke onset and with first-ever acute stroke were included. Thirty control subjects, matched for age and sex were enrolled. Subjects with inflammatory or infectious diseases, cancer, immunologic disease, or severe renal or liver failure were not included in the study. Patients who took chemotherapy, radiotherapy, operation, biological agent or immuno- suppressive drugs (within 1 month before admission) and complicated secondary infection were also excluded. The levels of IL-10 were measured using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The ratios of nucleolar areas by silver staining to nuclear areas (I.S%) were the index of Ag-NORs. Neurological deficit was assessed with the use of scandinavian stroke scale (SSS). SPSS 10.0 software was adopted to carry out the data processing and analyses. T test was adopted to carry out the comparison of the two groups and multi-group comparison used analysis of variance (ANOVA) F test and q test. In order to study the correlation of the variances, the method of linear correlation was adopted accordingly. Results: 1) As compared with the controls, the levels of serum IL-10 were increased in three periods in the infarction group and cerebral hemorrhage group (P<0.05), no showing marked changes in three periods (P>0.05). 2) The levels of serum IL-10 were not obviously differences in patients with different degree states (P>0.05). 3) As compared with the controls, the levels of Ag-NORs of T lymphocytes in patients with acute cerebral stroke were decreased (P<0.01), the levels of Ag-NORs within 72 hours were higher than that in the second week (P<0.01), but were still lower than that in control group (P<0.01). 4) The levels of Ag-NORs of T lymphocytes in severe patients with cerebral infarction were lower than that in slight patients in the same period (P<0.05). 5) There were no correlations between the levels of serum IL-10 and Ag-NORs of T lymphocytes.Conclusions: 1) The levels of anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 were obviously increased in patients with acute cerebral stroke, it was involved in the process of the inflammatory reaction in the pathophysiology of stroke.2) The cellular immune functions in patients with acute cerebral stroke decreased, and may be associated with the pathogenetic condition in patients with ischemic stroke.3) IL-10 may be potential therapeutic drugs. Enhancing the immune function of patients with acute cerebral stroke may be enhance the therapeutic efficiency.