Both inflammatory and regulatory cytokine responses to malaria are blunted with increasing age in highly exposed children

Table 2 Relationships to age and parasite density

Cytokine/ chemokine	Univariate			Multivariate analysis					1–3 yr olds		7–9 yr olds
	Age group^a	Parasite density		Age group		Parasite density		PD X AG	Parasite density		Parasite density
	P	P	Coef	P	Coef	P	Coef	P	P	Coef	P	Coef
IL10	–	0.0003	0.50	0.002	− 0.72	0.2	0.45	0.03	0.02	0.46	0.6	− 0.13
TNFR1	0.0006	0.006	0.40	0.02	− 20.4	0.3	11.9	0.03	0.03	0.45	0.2	− 0.28
TNF	0.0002	0.004	0.42	0.01	− 0.35	0.9	0.12	0.8	0.6	0.11	0.4	0.20
IL2	0.1	0.1	0.22	0.6	− 0.05	0.3	0.15	0.2	0.4	0.19	0.6	− 0.12
IL4	0.1	0.3	0.16	0.5	− 0.04	0.5	0.04	0.7	0.6	− 0.12	0.5	0.16
IL6	< 0.0001	0.0007	0.48	0.001	− 0.75	0.2	0.36	0.9	0.5	0.14	0.1	0.34
IP10	0.005	0.05	0.28	0.02	− 0.37	0.8	0.05	0.1	0.2	0.25	0.3	− 0.22
MIG	0.05	0.02	0.34	0.2	− 0.04	0.6	0.02	0.7	0.2	0.26	n/a	n/a
MCP1	0.009	0.04	0.20	0.2	− 0.29	0.4	0.26	0.8	0.8	0.06	0.7	0.09
TARC	0.4	0.2	0.19	0.9	− 0.02	0.4	0.11	0.2	0.6	− 0.13	0.2	0.32
MDC	0.0006	0.2	0.19	0.003	− 0.22	0.6	− 0.05	0.3	0.9	− 0.02	0.2	− 0.29
MIP1a	0.06	0.4	0.13	0.1	− 0.27	0.6	− 0.11	0.3	0.6	− 0.11	0.8	0.07

All cytokine values are log-transformed except for TNFR1 which was square-root transformed. Younger age group used as reference group
Statistically significant values are indicated by italics
Coef coefficient, PD parasite density, AG age group
^aBy Wilcoxon rank sum test

ISSN: 1475-2875