Hindawi Publishing Corporation Mediators of Inflammation Volume 2006, Article ID 30485, Pages 1–6 DOI 10.1155/MI/2006/30485

Research Communication Elevated Circulating IL-1β and TNF-Alpha, and Unaltered IL-6 in First-Trimester Pregnancies Complicated by Threatened Abortion With an Adverse Outcome
Nicolaos Vitoratos, Constantinos Papadias, Emmanuel Economou, Evangelos Makrakis, Constantinos Panoulis, and George Creatsas
2nd Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Medical School, University of Athens, Aretaieion Hospital, 115 28 Athens, Greece Received 14 November 2005; Revised 29 March 2006; Accepted 30 March 2006 The purpose of the present study was to examine the profile of selected proinflammatory cytokines in maternal serum of …ver más…

The proinflammatory, proapoptotic, and procoagulant properties of TNF-alpha probably contribute to the widely accepted abortogenic profile of this cytokine.

2 IL-6 is a multifunctional Th2-type cytokine produced by immune cells, fibroblasts, endothelial cells, adipocytes, and myocytes [10]. The role of IL-6 expression during pregnancy, as well as its predictive value for pregnancy outcome, is unclear, although it generally seems to favor pregnancy success [10]. IL-6 is considered to be a proinflammatory cytokine. Elevated levels of IL-6 in the placenta, amniotic cells, and deciduas have been demonstrated in pregnancies complicated by preterm premature rupture of the membranes, intrauterine infection, and prematurity [11]. However, IL-6 also has antiinflammatory properties. In this context, IL-6 has been shown to induce the release of human chorionic gonadotrophin from trophoblasts, leading to a subsequent cascade of progesterone production, release of Th2 cytokines, for example, IL-4, and suppression of Th1 cytokines [12]. To our knowledge, there are no reports on maternal serum IL-1β levels and a limited number of reports exploring the profile of TNF-alpha [13] and IL-6 [2] levels in first-trimester threatened abortion-complicated pregnancies (TACP), and, moreover, there are no reports evaluating the relevance of maternal serum levels of all these three