Importância da citometria de fluxo na avaliação da resposta imune celular em indivíduos portadores de tuberculose pulmonar soronegativos ou soropositivos ao HIV

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Ciências da Saúde, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Farmácia, Florianópolis, 2014.A tuberculose (TB) é uma doença infectocontagiosa causada pelo Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) transmitida diretamente de pessoa para pessoa, através da inalação de partículas infectadas pelo MTB. A TB é considerada um problema de saúde pública mundial. A cada ano, são registrados mundialmente, aproximadamente, 9 milhões de novos casos de TB e 1,4 milhões de mortes decorrentes da doença. Indivíduos infectados pelo MTB podem desenvolver tanto uma doença progressiva quanto uma infecção latente, dependendo do seu estado imunológico. Com o advento da Síndrome da Imunodeficiência Adquirida (AIDS), caracterizada como uma disfunção grave do sistema imunológico de pacientes infectados pelo vírus da imunodeficiência humana (HIV), houve um profundo impacto sobre o aumento do número de novos casos de TB. Apesar da forte correlação entre o desenvolvimento da TB e a diminuição de células T CD4+ no sangue periférico de indivíduos coinfectados pelo MTB/HIV estar bem estabelecida, a resposta imune celular pulmonar permanece incerta. Informações relacionadas à citologia do escarro de pacientes com TB são escassas e não se sabe exatamente se há diferenças na resposta imune celular pulmonar entre os pacientes HIV soropositivos e HIV soronegativos. Estas observações reforçam a importância da pesquisa para o desenvolvimento e avaliação de métodos que permitam o estudo das células que envolvem a resposta imune pulmonar no combate à infecção pelo MTB, principalmente nos casos de coinfecção pelo HIV/MTB. A análise das células de escarro por microscopia óptica é um método bem estabelecido para a determinação das subpopulações leucocitárias. No entanto, essa metodologia possui algumas limitações, como a impossibilidade de diferenciação de subtipos celulares morfologicamente idênticos e a necessidade de uma amostra de boa qualidade. Diante do exposto, o objetivo desse trabalho foi a investigação da importância da citometria de fluxo na avaliação da resposta imune celular em indivíduos portadores de tuberculose pulmonar ativa e bacilíferos soro negativos ou soro positivos ao HIV. Inicialmente, realizou-se a padronização da citometria de fluxo para avaliação dos fenótipos leucocitários do escarro. Após a padronização, avaliou-se a celularidade de 30 amostras de escarro de pacientes portadores de TB pulmonar ativa e bacilíferos. Os resultados demonstraram que os neutrófilos (95,68%) compunham maior percentual do que os monócitos/macrófagos (2,62%) e os linfócitos (1,64%) na celularidade total das amostras de escarro analisadas. Além disso, com relação ao total de linfócitos T (100%),foram observados em média 12,31% de linfócitos T auxiliares, 24,13% de linfócitos T citotóxicos, 62,85% de linfócitos T gama/delta (?d) e 0,02% de linfócitos T com fenótipo CD4+ e CD8+. Após a determinação da celularidade, os resultados das amostras de escarro foram subdividos em dois grupos, soropositivos e soronegativos ao HIV. Na associação desses subgrupos leucocitários acima descritos, foram observadas diferenças estatisticamente significativas somente para os percentuais de monócitos/macrófagos. Os resultados encontrados mostram que a citometria de fluxo é um método eficaz para avaliar os diferentes subtipos de linfócitos presentes nas amostras de escarro, mesmo daquelas consideradas inviáveis para análise por microscopia óptica. Sendo assim, é de grande importância para o enriquecimento das informações associadas à imunologia da coinfecção pelo MTB/HIV.Abstract : Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) that is transmitted directly from person to person through inhalation of infected particles MTB. TB is considered a worldwide public health problem. Each year, an estimated 9 million people developed TB and 1.4 million died from the disease. MTB-infectious individuals may develop either a progressive disease as well as a latent infection, and it is imune-dependent status. With the advent of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) that is characterized as a severe dysfunction of the immune system of patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), there was a profound impact on increasing number of new TB cases. Despite the strong relationship between the TB development and the decrease of CD4 + cells in peripheral blood of co-infected MTB/HIV individuals be well established, the lung cellular immune response remains unclear. Information regarding the sputum of TB patients is scarce and it is not known exactly if there are cellular differences in lung immune response among HIV-positive and HIV-negative individuals. These observations emphasize the importance of research for development and evaluation techniques to study cells that surround the pulmonary immune response against MTB infection, especially in cases of coinfection HIV/MTB. The analysis of sputum cells by optical microscopy is a well-established method for the determination of leukocyte subpopulations. However, this methodology has some limitations such as the inability to differentiate morphologically identical cell subtypes and the need for a good quality sputum sample. Given the above, the aim of this study was to investigate the importance of flow cytometry to assess the cellular immune response in individuals with active pulmonary TB and bacillary, in HIV-negative or HIV-positive. First, the standardization of flow cytometry was done for assessment of leukocyte phenotypes sputum. After standardization, there were evaluated the cellularity of 30 sputum samples from patients with active pulmonary TB. The results demonstrated that neutrophils (95.68%) comprised the greatest percentage of sputum cellularity cells comparing to monocytes/macrophages (2.62%) and lymphocytes (1.64%) populations in the analyzed samples. Besides that, regarding to total T-lymphocytes (100%) there were observed on average of 12.31% of T helper, 24.13% of T cytotoxic, 62.85% of T gamma/delta (?d) and 0.02% of T with the phenotype CD4+ and CD8+. After the sputum cellularity determination, the results of the sputum samples were subdivided into two groups,HIV-positive and HIV-negative. In the association of these leukocyte subsets described above, only statistically significant differences were observed for the percentage of monocytes/ macrophages. The results show that flow cytometry is a powerful method to evaluate the different subtypes of lymphocytes present in sputum samples, even those considered unviable for analysis by light microscopy. Therefore, flow cytometry is of great importance to enrich the informations about the co infection MTB/HIV immunology

Analysis of the presence of FLT3 gene mutation and association with prognostic factors in adult and pediatric acute leukemia patients

When the FLT3 gene is mutated, it originates a modified receptor with structural changes, which give survival advantage and malignant hematopoietic cell proliferation. Thus, the presence of mutations in this gene is considered an unfavorable prognostic factor. A total of 85 consecutive samples of newly diagnosed untreated patients with AL were included in the study after they provided their informed consent. FLT3 gene mutations were detected by PCR. For the pediatric group, a positive correlation was observed between WBC count and the presence of FLT3-ITD in patients with AML and ALL. Furthermore, children with AML who had the FLT3-ITD mutation showed a tendency to express CD34 in blast cells. In the adult group, the AML patients with FLT3-ITD who expressed CD34 in blast cells had a tendency to worse progression. The present data indicate no association between the prognostic factors evaluated and FLT3 gene mutations in adult with AL. Yet, the presence of FLT3-ITD mutation was significantly related with WBC count in the pediatric group. These findings demonstrate that FLT3 gene mutations can be considered as independent poor prognostic factors

The fight against sexually transmitted infections cannot stop in the COVID-19 era: a brazilian experience in online training for sexually transmitted infections guidelines

Introduction: The Brazilian Ministry of Health had planned face-to-face workshops for professional training about the Clinical Protocols and Therapeutic Guidelines for Comprehensive Care for People with Sexually Transmitted Infections for the year 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the workshops were cancelled, and a new strategy was adopted: virtual meetings, called Webinars—Clinical Protocols and Therapeutic Guidelines for Comprehensive Care for People with Sexually Transmitted Infections 2020. Objective: To report the experience at the Ministry of Health in online training about the clinical protocol and therapeutic guidelines for comprehensive care for people sexually transmitted infections for health professionals in 2020. Methods: The webinars were held in partnership with the Brazilian Society of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and the Pan American Health Organization. Each chapter of the Clinical Protocols and Therapeutic Guidelines for Comprehensive Care for People with Sexually Transmitted Infections—2020 was converted into a webinar, with the participation of at least three experts, two speakers, and a moderator. Results: In total, 16 webinars were presented, covering topics such as sexually transmitted infections surveillance, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, public policies, and sexual violence. The initiative had more than 77,000 hits, with an average of 4,900 hits per webinar and the topic “syphilis” being the most accessed. The event reached all 27 federative units of Brazil, as well as 27 other countries. About 500 questions were received from the audience and answered during the sessions and/or through a document published later on by the Ministry of Health. Conclusion: Given the high number of hits and inquiries received, we can conclude that health professionals remained engaged in the topic of sexually transmitted infections during the pandemic. This experience shows the great potential of innovative methods for distance learning to promote continuing education, including a series of webinars aimed at strengthening the fight against sexually transmitted infections.