Aim: To investigate the clinical significance of the levels of IL-4, IL-33 and thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TLSP) in patients with asthma and/or rhinitis, then do the simple verification in animals.
Methods: Levels of IL-4 IL-31, IL-33 and TLSP were detected by ELISA and real-time PCR in 64 asthma patients (sIgE[+]: 32 cases, sIgE[-]: 32 cases), 64 rhinitis patients (sIgE[+]: 32 cases, sIgE[-]: 32 cases), 64 asthma complicated with allergic rhinitis patients (sIgE[+]: 32 cases, sIgE[-]: 32 cases) and 32 healthy controls. Then we detected the IL-4, IL-31, IL-33 and TLSP in the sensitized mice.
Results: Results showed that levels of IL-4, IL-31, IL-33 and TSLP in asthma and rhinitis patients, and those complicated with allergic rhinitis, had significant differences compared with the control group (p < 0.05). It was found that the indicators of mugwort and dust mite allergic patients were significantly higher than that of other allergic patients (p < 0.05). We got the same tendency in in vivo experiments.
Conclusion: IL-4, IL-31, IL-33 and TSLP may be involved in the pathogenesis of asthma and rhinitis; dust mite and mugwort allergy could increase them significantly.
Keywords: asthma; dust mite; mugwort; rhinitis.