Clinical Trial: Cytokines in Papillon-Lefèvre Syndrome

Study Status: Completed
Recruit Status: Completed
Study Type: Observational

Official Title: Observational Study on Cytokine Production by Leukocytes of Papillon-Lefèvre Syndrome Patients and Healthy Probands in Whole Blood Cultures

Brief Summary: Papillon-Lefèvre syndrome (PLS) is characterised by aggressively progressive periodontitis combined with palmo-plantar hyperkeratosis. It is caused by "loss of function" mutations in the cathepsin C gene. The hypothesis behind this study is that PLS patients' PMNs produce more proinflammatory cytokines to compensate for their reduced capacity to neutralize leukotoxin and to eliminate Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans. Production of more interleukin (IL)-8 would result in the attraction of more PMNs. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the cytokine profile in PLS patients' blood cultures.

Detailed Summary:

MATERIAL AND METHODS Materials Lipopolysaccharide (LPS; Escherichia coli, serotype R515) was purchased from Alexis (Lausen, Switzerland) and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) from Sigma (Deisenhofen, Germany). Tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) was kindly provided by the Knoll AG (Ludwigshafen, Germany). IL-1β was from Invitrogen/Biosource (Karlsruhe, Germany).

Patients and healthy donors Five patients with established diagnose of PLS are under periodontal treatment at the Department of Periodontology, Center for Dental, Oral, and Maxillofacial Medicine (Carolinum) of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main. Antiinfective therapy with adjunctive antibiotics has been rendered to all of them and they are under regular and frequent supportive therapy. The Department of Periodontology has contact to additional 5 PLS patients that are edentulous or under periodontal therapy elsewhere. All patients underwent complete oral examinations as well as inspection of the skin of the palms and soles. Each adult patient or parents received clinical and genetic counselling, and signed a consent form, approved by the ethic committees of the Universities of Dresden and Frankfurt/Main. Clinical data and mutations of all patients have been reported before. All these patients were invited to take part in this study. Healthy donors had abstained from taking drugs for two weeks prior to the study. Due to wide spread use of oral contraceptives only male probands were chosen. The study complied with the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Institutional Review Board for Human Studies of the Medical Faculty of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt/Main (Application# 31/05). All participating individuals were informed on risks and benefit as well as the procedures of the study and gave written informed consent.

Concentrations of IL-8, IL-6, IP-10, interferon (IFN)-gamma, and IL-1 beta, in plasma/RPMI samples were determined by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) according to the manufacturers' instructions