Abstract
A number of investigators have reported that prolonged and excessive consumption of alcohol results in alterations of host immunity (1). Such alterations are believed to lead to increased susceptibility to infections (2). In fact, it has been pointed out in many reports that infections in alcoholics are serious problems (3). For example, bacterial pneumonia occurs frequently and is a more serious problem in alcoholics. In this regard, various experimental studies have shown deleterious effects of alcohol on host immune cells such as lymphocytes (4,5), natural killer cells (6), polymorphonuclear cells (7) and macrophages (8). All of these cells have critical roles in defense mechanisms against not only microbial infections but also development of malignant cells. Furthermore, recent studies have shown that when macrophages are treated with alcohol, there is a significant increase in susceptibility of the cells to Mycobacteria (9). Such reports suggest that alcohol treatment in vitro and in vivo induces disturbance of a host’s immune system and also impairs effector cells such as macrophages. However, there is only limited information about how such deleterious effects of alcohol impact on the immune defense mechanism against infections. For example, it has not yet been elucidated what type of infections are serious in experimental alcoholism, whether direct or indirect effects of alcohol on effector cells are more crucial, how cytokine production is modulated by alcohol and how these effects, if any, correlate with susceptibility to infection. In this regard, we examined the direct effect of ethanol on susceptibility of macrophages to Legionella pneumophila infection, since this bacteria is a typical intracellular gram-negative bacillus and causes pulmonary infection in immunocompromised hosts (10).
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Yamamoto, Y., Klein, T.W., Friedman, H. (1993). Ethanol Affects Macrophage Production of IL-6 and Susceptibility to Infection by Legionella Pneumophila . In: Friedman, H., Klein, T.W., Specter, S. (eds) Drugs of Abuse, Immunity, and AIDS. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 335. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2980-4_24
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2980-4_24
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