TITLE:
Measuring Tumor Necrosis Factor-Alpha and Interleukin-1 Beta Levels in Mustard Gas Exposed Patients
AUTHORS:
Hoda Sheibani, Mohammad Goudarzi, Malek Ashtar Esfandiari, Fatemeh Rousta, Reza Haji Hosseini
KEYWORDS:
Mustard Gas (SM), Cytokine, TNF-α and IL-1β
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Bioscience and Biotechnology,
Vol.8 No.4,
April
30,
2017
ABSTRACT: Sulfur mustard (SM) is an alkalizing chemical which has been used mostly as a weapon all over the world. Sulfur mustard can cause damages to many organs, especially the skin, respiratory system and the eyes. Generally, many complications of mustard gas result from its alkalizing potency and reaction with cellular components like DNA, RNA, proteins and lipid membranes. The damages caused by SM will lead to many complications which persist during the lifespan of exposed subjects. Pro-inflammatory cytokines including especially TNF-α and IL-1β can cause systemic inflammatory reactions and vast changes like altered cell signaling, migration, cytokine production changes and fever. This study was designed to analyze cytokine levels in mustard-gas-exposed people’s serum in the war between Iraq and Iran, who had the chronic dry-eye symptoms compared to the normal group, 30 years after exposure. In this study, 25 veterans who were exposed to mustard gas were compared to 25 healthy people as control group. The veterans with concurrent involvement of eye, lung, and skin were selected. We used ELISA method to assess the levels of TNF-α and IL-1β in serum of people in both groups. All the results analyzed with T-test in SPSS 17 statistical software. The mean levels of TNF-α and IL-1β in serum of chemical exposed veterans were 52.3 ± 1.4 pg/ml and 3.43 ± 0.3 pg/ml while in the control group were 19.5±1.3 pg/ml and 2.25 ± 0.2 pg/ml, respectively. In the control group, the serum pro-inflammatory cytokine levels were significantly lower than the exposed group (P