[Immunoregulatory properties of monocytes/macrophages in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis]

Antigen-presenting ability of monocytes/macrophages (Mc/Mph) was studied in 26 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis and in 21 healthy donors. The above investigation has demonstrated that the ability of the Mc/Mph patients to present mycobacterial antigens was not only intact, but also appeared to be even higher than the reference values of Mc/Mph antigen presentation in healthy donors (0.7 and 0.28, respectively). The ability of Mc/Mph to secrete interleukin-1 (IL-1) both spontaneously and as a response to muramil dipeptide, a synthetic macrophage activator, was studied in 24 tuberculosis patients and 15 healthy donors. During the experiment it was revealed that the affected and healthy cells binding to a plastic surface do not differ in their spontaneous production of IL-1 (0.8 and 0.79, respectively). At the same time in response to muramil dipeptide stimulation, the Mc/Mph patients produced lesser IL-1 than those of the healthy donors stimulated under the similar conditions (3.2 +/- 1.1 and 10.6 +/- 3.6, respectively).