Background: Impairment of the dynamic balance between the first and second type of cytokine response with the prevalence of cytokines of the first type plays and important role in the pathogenesis of several autoimmune diseases, including the juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). The aim of our work was to analyse cytokine profile in lymphocytes in the peripheral blood of patients with JIA, and to evaluate the mutual ration between T lymphocytes producing cytokines of the first and second type in different forms of the disease.
Methods and results: We studied a group of 42 children aged 6 to 16 years, 32 of them were patients with JIA, 10 children with non-autoimmune diseases represented the control group. Expression of intracellular cytokines INF-gamma and IL-4 were assayed in activated T lymphocytes using recommended protocol (FastImmune Cytokine system, BD). For the sample analysis, flow cytometer FACScan (BD) was used. No differences in incidence of CD3+INF-gamma + Ly was found between patients with oligoarticular and polyarticular form of JIA (19.3 +/- 8.65 vs. 19.2 +/- 9.7%), and values were equal to that of the control group (19.5 +/- 5.85%). Similarly, no difference was found in incidence of CD3+INF4+ Ly between the JIA patients and controls (2.4 +/- 0.9 vs. 2.8 +/- 0.45%). Patients with polyarticular form of disease had statistically lower incidence of CD3+INF4+ Ly than it was among the control group (1.8 +/- 0.9 vs. 2.8 +/- 0.45%, p < 0.05).
Conclusions: In the studied group of 32 patients with different forms of JIA, lower activity of cytokine response of the type 2 was found in children with polyarticular form of the disease.