好酸球における活性化抗原CD69の発現

Abstract

The activation antigen, CD69, has been shown to be expressed on activated lymphocytes. CD69 has also been shown to be associated with the signal transduction process. In this study, the author performed flowcytometric analysis of CD69 expression on eosinophils obtained from the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), pleural effusion, or peripheral blood (PB) of various patients. Whatever the diseases were, lung eosinophils obtained from BALF or pleural effusion expressed significant levels of CD69, whereas most PB eosinophils did not express CD69. Further, CD69 expression was induced on PB eosinophils by the activation of interleukin-3 (IL-3), IL-5, granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), interferon-a (IFN-α) and phorbol myristate acetate (PMA), but platelet activating factor (PAF) did not induce CD69 expression. CD69 expression induced by IL-3 or GM-CSF was in a dose and time dependent manner. The expression could be induced significantly at low concentration of 10 pg/ml and was detected after stimulation for two hours. These findings suggest that CD69 expressions are restricted to local eosinophils, and that local eosinophils may stand at a different activating state from PB eosinophils.