Oxidative Stress and Role of Thiol in Leprosy

Leprosy is a disease of great antiquity & it still continuous to be a significant health problem in few countries including India. Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by mycobacterium leprae.Of the various mechanism that influences the pathogenesis of leprosy ,oxidative stress is important which occurs due to derangement in the balance between ROS and natural antioxidant.Considering this the study was planned to observe the status of oxidative stress in terms of lipid peroxidation and thiol as antioxidant in leprosy.In present study 50 leprosy patient &50 age and sex matched healthy controls were included.Out of 50 leprosy patient 34 were multibacillary(MB) leprosy patients and16 were paucibacillary(PB)leprosy patients. The level of Malondialdehyde as a marker of lipid peroxidation was found to be significantly increased in leprosy patients than controls. Again the level Malondialdehyde was found to be significantly increasd in multibacillary leprosy patients than paucibacillary leprosy patients.The level of thiolwas found to be significantly decreased in leprosy patients than controls. Again the level thiol was found to be significantly decreasd in multibacillary leprosy patients than paucibacillary leprosy patientsThe negative correlation among Malondialdehyde and thiol was observed among patients.Thus, increaseof lipid peroxidation and decrease in thiol leads protein modifications in leprosy which may be responsible for disease progression.