The role of interleukin-13 in asthma

Background: Interleukin-13 (IL-13), the most recently identified cytokine to join the Th2 cytokine family, is distantly related to IL-4. The aim of this study was to identify the role of IL-13 in asthmatic children.

Method: With purpose to study the parameters of cytokine profile, the clinical and laboratorial indicators of 62 patients with half-serious and serious atopic bronchial asthma were examined.

The study included 3 groups. Group A consisted of  10 children with serious atopic bronchial asthma (age 1-16 years), Group B of  52 children with half-serious atopic bronchial asthma and Group C (Control Group) of 15 healthy children  without asthma or other atopic disease.

Results: The results of serum IgE, IL-13, IL-17, IL-4 and IL-5 are shown in the table:

Table 1:

 

IgE and Cytokines	Group A	Group B	Group C
IgE	524,4	335,4	213,8
IL-13	6,53	4,28	1,74
IL-17	10,65	7,04	3,14
IL-4	7,08	5,25	1,37
IL-5	40,5	29,7	10,4

Conclusions: The asthmatic phenotype in humans is accompanied by elevated expression of IL-13. The latter is a key factor in the asthmatic phenotype but its role remains elusive. The anti-inflammatory  cytokine IL-17, as well as Th-2 cytokines IL-4 and IL-5  may be useful markers of chronic inflammation in childhood asthma without helping to determine the state of the disease. Further studies are required to elucidate the exact role of the above cytokines in children with asthma