Variation and significance of IL-4/IFN-γ and TGF-β/IL-17 in serum of patients with endometriosis

In current,many efforts have been made to correctly characterize the role of the immune response in endometriosis(EM).This study is aimed to analyze the relationship between clinical characteristics of EM and Th1/Th2,Th17/Treg immune response patterns.With Enzyme linked inmmunoabsorbent assay(ELISA),we detected the levels of interferon gama(IFN-γ),interleukin-4(IL-4),transforming growth factor beta(TGF-β) and interleukin-17(IL-17) in serum of patients with EM and controls.The levels of serum IFN-γ and IL-17 in EM patients were significantly lower than those in control group(P 0.01),while the levels of IL-4 and TGF-β in serum of EM patients were significantly higher than those in controls(P 0.05).The ratios of IL-4/IFN-γ and TGF-β/IL-17 were significantly higher than those in controls(P 0.01).Furthermore,the ratios of IL-4/IFN-γ,TGF-β/IL-17 in EM patients with Ⅲ～Ⅳ stage were significantly higher than those with Ⅰ～Ⅱ stage.From these results,we presume that there is Th1/Th2 and Th17/Treg immune imbalance in EM patients,the degree of the immune imbalance is related to the process of the disease,which may contribute to further understanding of EM pathogenesis.