The Expressions And Significances Of IL-6 And IL-23 In Colonic Mucosa Of Ulcerative Colitis Patients

Background and objectivesUlcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic non-specificity inflammatory disorder of the rectum and colon. UC and crohn's disease (CD) are the two major forms of IBD. The specific pathogenesis of UC is still unknown. It is thought that one of the most important factors is the changed environment inside, which maybe causes the imbalance of the normal immune survivability to the normal flora in bowel. This inflammatory reaction occurs repeatedly and is difficult in self-cure. Some evidences show that many factors including immune, environment, inheritance, allergy and psychology, abnormalities of the barriers in epithelium entericum and the disorders of the micropopulation may be involved in UC's development. Although there are many different inducements, it is widely believed that unusual immunological mechanisms play an important role in the process. The immune system looks like a big internet, every part of which can coordinate and interact mutually. There are synergetic actions between them to keep order in the immune response and immunological tolerance. The distory of any part of the internet may lead to immunological abnormalities. The immunological mechanisms include inflammation transmitter, immunoregulation and cytokins (CK). The cytokines are a group of small molecule polypeptides which have wide biological activity and cytokines are synthesized and secreted by the immunocyte and the non-immunocyte. The cytokines widely participate in biology activities in the body, such as inflammation, hematopoiesis, immunity, damage response and so on. Various cytokines participate in the course of the immunoreaction and inflammation. It is believed that Interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interleukin-23 (IL-23) are the two kinds of important cytokines, which participate in the immunoreaction and inflammation course in many kinds of diseases rsepectively. We aimed at investigating the expression of IL-6 and IL-23 in colonic mucosa in UC and studying the relationship between the two parameters and Ulcerative Colitis (UC) disease MethodsForty-two patients with clinically, endoscopically and pathologically determined UC were studied. Thirty-two of them had active UC. Ten patiens had inactive UC. And the active group were divided into mild group (n=9), moderate group (n=10) and severe group (n=13). All groups had no difference in gender, age and onset time (P>0.05). Eighteen health checkups were taken as normal controls. There are no difference in gender, age and onset time (P>0.05) as well. Three to five pieces of the obvious infected mucous membrane were fetched under the electronic colonoscope and then formalin-fixed, paraffin imbedded and sliced, also the normal mucous membrane. The expression of IL-6 and IL-23 in colonic mucosa were detected by immunohistochemistry. The integrated optical density (integrated optical density=mean×area) in every visual field was detected by Imagepro-Plus(IPP)6.0. The average of the integrated optical density was set up as a standard expression of IL-6 and IL-23 in colonic mucosa. Dates are analyzed by SPSS 13.0 statistics software. The measurement material use theχ2 examination, counts the material to use the mean±SD. Differences among groups were compared by One-Way ANOVA. P<0.05 was selected as a significant standard.ResultsThe expressions of IL-6 and IL-23 in colonic mucosa were higher in active UC than that in inactive UC and in normal controls. (P<0.05). Positive cells of IL-23 in remission group were more than in normal controls (P<0.05). In terms of IL-6 expression level, there was no significant difference between the remission group and the normal control group (P>0.05). In terms of IL-6 and IL-23 expression level, the severe group was more than the moderate and the mild group, and the moderate group was more than the mild group, and the mild group was more than the remission group (all P<0.05). The expression of IL-23 and IL-6 was increased with the severity of the disease.ConclusionIL-6 and IL-23 might play an important role in the development of the UC disease. The expressions of IL-6 and IL-23 are increased with the severity of the disease.