Estudo da expressão imunohistoquímica de linfócitos T-REG em pacientes com formas polares de hanseníase e reações hansênicas

Abstract

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae and presents a wide range of clinical manifestations, depending on the host immune response. At the tuberculoid pole, patients have an effective Th1 cellular immune response against bacillus, with well-demarcated granulomas, which limits the disease, while the lepromatous pole is characterized by the absence of specific cellular immunity against Mycobacterium leprae, with a Th2 immune response, uncontrolled proliferation of leprosy bacilli and a spread disease. In addition to Th1 and Th2 lymphocytes, recently other subset of T cells has been described. T regulatory lymphocytes play an immunosuppressive role in the activity of other cells and seem to participate in modulating the immune response in human chronic infections and self-tolerance. We performed immunohistochemical study on skin biopsies of 35 patients with different forms of leprosy using anti-CD4, anti-CD8 and anti-FoxP3 antibodies. There was an increased CD4 expression in tuberculoid patients and an increased CD8 expression in lepromatous patients. The FoxP3 expression was higher in lepromatous and reversal leprosy reaction patients. As previously demonstrated in other granulomatous infections, T regulatory cells may play a role in the immunopathology of leprosy. However, studies with larger series of patients are required to further elucidate the relationship between the presence of these cells and the clinical form of the disease.