Determing patient's IFN/cytokine system may reveal vulnerability to new strains of influenza viruses

本研究旨在探讨糖尿病、MPO-ANCA肾炎和慢性阻塞性肺疾病患者干扰素-α产生能力与常见感染易感性的关系。最初，流感被选为此类常见感染之一，但由于自2010年以来没有新的流感大流行，我们缺乏被感染的样本人口。有鉴于此，我们已经改变了方向，现在我们的重点是干扰素细胞因子系统与患者对牙周病的易感性和COPD恶化频率之间的关系。我们比较了糖尿病、MPO-ANCA肾炎和COPD患者与健康人的干扰素产生能力，发现这些疾病患者的干扰素产生明显低于健康人。我们还观察到MPO-ANCA肾炎患者的浆细胞样树突状细胞数量和血浆干扰素的存在严重受损。在糖尿病患者中，有牙周病患者的干扰素产生能力低于非牙周病患者。然而，我们没有观察到COPD加重的频率和干扰素生产能力之间的显著关系。这些结果表明，干扰素-α的产生能力可以作为预测既往疾病患者感染易感性的良好指标。

Our aim in this report was to determine the relationship between IFN-α producing capacity and susceptibility to common infection in patients with diabetes, MPO-ANCA nephritis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. Originally, influenza was chosen as one such common infection however since there has been no new influenza pandemic since 2010, we lacked a sample population that was infected. In light of this, we have changed direction and our focus is now on the relationship between the IFN cytokine system and patient vulnerability to periodontal disease and frequency of COPD exacerbation. We compared IFN production capacity in diabetes, MPO-ANCA nephritis and COPD patients with those of healthy subjects and found that IFN production in these diseased subjects was significantly low compared with healthy subjects. We also observed that MPO-ANCA nephritis patients showed extreme impairment of plasmacytoid dendritic cell number and existence of plasma IFN. Among diabetes patients, those with periodontal disease showed lower IFN production capacity than non-periodontal patients. However, we observed no significant relationship between the frequency of COPD exacerbation and IFN production capacity. These results suggest that IFN-α production capacity could be good marker to predict susceptibility to infection in patients with existing diseases.