| Mycobacterium Tuberculosis (M.tb ) infects one-third of the world's population and causes almost 2 million deaths per year. Approximately 90% of infected persons have latent Tuberculosis infection (LTBI), have protective immunity and remain well, but 10% develop primary Tuberculosis (TB) soon after infection or reactivation TB many years later. Alcoholism is a risk factor for the reactivation of Tuberculosis in LTBI individuals. In the current study using mouse models we determined whether alcohol feeding has any effect on innate responses to M.tb. We fed experimental mice with control and alcohol diets for one month and determined the number of T and NK cells. We also determined the level of cytokine production by NK cells and peritoneal macrophages in response to M.tb. We found that alcohol fed mice and control diet fed mice have a similar number of T cells and NK cells after one month. We found that chronic alcohol feeding has no effect on the functional capacity of mouse NK cells to produce IFN-gamma and IL-22 in response to M.tb. In contrast, chronic alcohol feeding significantly impaired mouse peritoneal macrophages to produce TNF-alpha and IL-10 upon culturing with gamma-irradiated M.tb H37Rv. There is no significant difference in the IL-15 mRNA levels in the control and alcohol diet when stimulated with gamma-irradiated M.tb.. |
