Abstract

The long lasting inflammation and immune dysregulation is one of the main mechanisms involved in lung complication of veterans exposed to sulfur mustard (SM) gas. Th17/Treg cells have an important role in immunopathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and mustard lung disease. In this study, expression of cytokines genes levels related to Th17/Treg cells was determined in peripheral blood mononuclear (PBMC) of mustard lung patients and was compared with COPD patients and healthy controls (HC). Real time-polymerase chain reaction was used to assay genes expression levels of Th17 related cytokines (IL-17, IL-6 and TGF-beta) and Treg related cytokines (IL-10, TGF-beta). IL-17 gene expression level considerably was higher in SM patients (9.98 +/- 0.65, p<0.001), and COPD (4.75 +/- 0.71, p<0.001), compare to HC group. Also, gene expression level of IL-6 in the SM group (3.31 +/- 0.93, p<0.001) and COPD group (2.93 +/- 0.21, p<0.001) were significantly higher than the HC group. The IL-10 gene expression level showed a high increase in SM patients (4.12 +/- 0.91, p<0.01), and COPD (2.1 +/- 0.45, p<0.01). Finally, the TGF-beta gene expression level was increased in SM patients (4.91 +/- 0.69, p<0.001) as well as in COPD group (5.41 +/- 0.78, p<0.001). In SM patients, IL-17 (R=-0.721, p<0.05), IL-6 (R=0.621, p<0.05) and TGF-beta (R=-0.658, p<0.05) had significant negative association with FEV1 (). Inversely, Il-10 showed positive correlation (R=0.673) with FEV1 (). Th17/Treg cells related cytokines genes were highly expressed and imbalanced in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of SM and COPD patients which correlated with pulmonary dysfunction.