Leprosy was the first disease classified according to the thymus derived T-cell in the 1960s and the first disease classified by the cytokine profile as intact interferon-γ (IFN-γ) and interleukin-2 (IL2) or TH1 (tuberculoid) and deficient IFN-γ and IL2 or TH2 (lepromatous), in the 1980s.
Further, high T cell proliferation and IL-2 production in PBMC cultures treated with anti-TGF-β and siRNA offers here a strategy to revert T cell hyporesponsiveness by downregulating Cbl-b expression in leprosy.
Genotyping using polymerase chain reaction with sequence-specific primers (PCR-SSP) was performed for: TNF(-308/-238), IL2(-330/+166), IL6(-174), IFNG(+874), TGFB1(+869/+915), and IL10(-592/-819/-1082) in 240 healthy controls and 167 patients with leprosy.