Dynamic changes and clinical significance of Toll-like receptor expression in neonatal sepsis

ZHOU Ping; CHEN Rui; MA Li-ya; LU Guang-jin

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1002-266X.2014.25.007

Abstract：Objective To investigate the dynamic changes of Toll-like receptors ( TLR2 and TLR4 ) in neonatal sepsis, and to determine their roles in neonatal bacterial infection.Methods A total of 60 neonates aged 31-42 weeks were divided into two groups: sepsis group ( n=30 ) and control group ( n=30 ) .The protein expression of TLR 2 and TLR 4 in monocytes and granulocytes in peripheral blood were evaluated by flow cytometry on day 1 after infection and day 7-10 ( after sepsis cured) in the sepsis group and on day 1 in the control group, respectively;mean-while, the CRP, WBC and blood platelets were detected.Results On day 1, TLR2 expression in granulocytes and monocytes and CRP expression in the sepsis group were higher than those of the control group ( all P<0 .05 ) .On day 7-10 , TLR2 expression in the granulocytes of the sepsis group rapidly decreased to control values in comparison to the control group, while in monocytes, the expression of TLR2 remained high expression ( P <0.05 ) .In the sepsis group, the expression of TLR4 in granulocytes remained low expression and showed no significant changes, but the ex-pression level of TLR4 in the monocytes was higher as compared with that in the granulocytes ( P<0 .05 ) .On day 7-10, the expression level of TLR4 in the monocytes decreased to control values in the sepsis group, and significant differences were found between the levels of day 1 and day 7-10 ( P<0.05) .WBC, platelets in the two groups had no significant changes before and after treatment.Conclusions The protein expression levels of TLR 2 and TLR 4 in-crease significantly in the neonatal sepsis groups, and have a dynamic changes in the course of sepsis, suggesting that TLR signal pathway takes part in the immune mechanism of neonatal anti-infection and is closely related to onset and progress of neonatal sepsis.