Ranjeet K Paswan, Sanjiva Bimal, Anjali Kumari, Preeti Sinha, Vidya N Rabidas, Krishna Pandey, Sanjay Kumar, Rakesh B Verma, Pradeep Das and Chandra S Lal
Visceral leishmaniasis (commonly called kala-azar) is an immune-compromised parasitic protozoan disease. Hypocholesterolemia is one of the major observations in visceral leishmaniasis. The aim of this study was to evaluate and correlate total cholesterol and lipoproteins with gamma-interferon, a protective cytokine and interleukin-10, a disease progressive cytokine in visceral leishmaniasis patients. We conducted correlation studies among lipid profile, interleukin-10 and gamma-interferon on visceral leishmaniasis patients (n = 34). Lipid profile was analyzed on chemistry analyzer according to standard procedure. Gamma-interferon and interleukin-10 were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay and Fluorescence activated cell sorter respectively (n = 34). The releasing ability of interleukin-10 and gamma-interferon was assayed by fluorescence activated cell sorter (n = 10). We observed a positive correlation between total cholesterol and gamma-interferon (R = 0.364, p = 0.034) and between high density lipoprotein and gamma-interferon (R = 0.628, p = 0.0001). While negative correlation between total cholesterol and interleukin-10 (R = -0.399, p = 0.019) and between high density lipoprotein and interleukin-10 (R = - 0.526, p = 0.001) were observed. The releasing ability of interleukin-10 was increased and gamma-interferon was decreased at lower concentration of high density lipoprotein (p < 0.05). Thus, the present work suggests the correlation of total serum cholesterol and high density lipoprotein with gammainterferon and interleukin-10 release in protection and disease progression respectively in visceral leishmaniasis.