Haipeng Li, et al. – This study aspired to examine cytokine levels in serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of hospitalized children with dengue virus (DENV) and Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) infection of the central nervous system. Similar cytokine accumulation profiles were induced by both DENV and JEV infection in the CSF. Possibly, these cytokine accumulation profiles contributed to DENV– and JEV–induced immunopathogenesis.

• This study entailed 183 hospitalised children with viral encephalitis-like syndrome between May 2014 and April 2015 at the Children’s Hospital of Chenzhou, Hunan, China.
• ELISA diagnosed DENV and JEV infection.
• Commercial ELISA kits estimated cytokine levels in the serum and CSF.
• Researchers detected twenty-nine (15.85%) and 26 (14.21%) DENV and JEV infections in 183 patients with viral encephalitis-like syndrome, respectively.
• They discovered higher granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) levels in the serum of JEV infected patients than in DNEV patients (p < 0.05) or in healthy controls (p < 0.001).
• It was noted that levels of GM-CSF, interleukin 6 (IL-6) and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) were higher in the CSF than serum in both DENV and JEV infection.