The role of interleukin genes in the course of depression

Abstract

Research studies conducted in recent years have confirmed that in the absence of medical illnesses, depressive disorders are associated with upregulation of many inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-aplha (TNF-α), interleukin-1 and 6 (IL-1,IL-6). The main objective of the study was to examine whether recurrent depressive disorders (rDD) are accompanied by more profound inflammatory disturbances than the first episode of depression (ED-I). The analysis included the expression of mRNA and protein levels of three interleukins namely. IL-1, IL-6 and IL-10.

Keywords

• first episode
• recurrent depressive disorder
• il-1
• il-6
• il-10