Hormone-like molecule kills cells that cause inflammation in allergic disease, VCU study shows

Main Category: Immune System / Vaccines
Article Date: 25 Aug 2005 - 21:00 PST

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

Virginia Commonwealth University immunologists studying mast cells, known to play a central role in asthma and allergic disease, have identified a hormone-like molecule that can kill these cells by programming them to die in studies with mice.

The findings move researchers another step closer to understanding the life cycle of mast cells, and may help researchers develop new treatments for allergy and inflammatory responses in arthritis, multiple sclerosis and heart disease.

In the Journal of Immunology, published online Aug. 23, researchers demonstrated the means by which a cytokine called interferon gamma (IFNƒ_ƒw induces death of developing mast cells in a mouse model system. Although IFNƒ_ induced cell death in developing mast cells, it did not affect the survival of mast cells that had already undergone differentiation.

"We believe that cytokines, such as interferon gamma, are an important means of controlling mast cell function in the body," said John J. Ryan, Ph.D., associate professor of biology at VCU and lead author of the study. "Because mast cells cause inflammation, regulating how many mast cells the body makes, where they go, what they do, and when they die can have a huge impact on health and disease.

"For example, there has been one report of a patient with mastocytosis, which is a type of pre-leukemia where mast cells proliferate abnormally, that showed improvement with IFNƒ_ treatment," he said. "It is possible that other mast cell-related diseases, such as asthma, may respond to IFNƒ_ treatment."

According to Ryan, mast cells are packed with granules containing histamine and are present in nearly all tissues except blood. When mast cells are activated, inflammatory substances such as histamine, heparin and a number of cytokines are rapidly released into the tissues and blood, promoting an allergic reaction.

Mast cells are believed to be generated by different precursor cells in the bone marrow.

In the in vitro portion of the study, researchers used mouse bone marrow cells containing the stem cells that give rise to mast cells. They cultured these precursor cells in conditions that allow mast cells to develop, and then added IFNƒ_ to some of these cultures. A high rate of cell death yielding no living mast cells was observed in the cultures that received IFNƒ_.

Similar results were reported in vivo using a mouse model. Mice with a mutation that causes them to overproduce IFNƒ_ were used, and again, researchers observed a significant decrease in mast cell numbers due to the excess of IFNƒ_. When researchers tried to culture mast cells from the bone marrow of these mice, the mast cells died.

Furthermore, a separate strain of mice with the same mutation as the first strain, but that had also been engineered to prevent IFNƒ_ production, were found to have almost as many mast cells as normal mice, if not more. They concluded that the presence of high IFNƒ_ levels blocked mast cell development.

This research was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Ryan collaborated with colleagues in the VCU Department of Biology, and the Department of Biochemistry at St. Jude Children¡_s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

About VCU and the VCU Medical Center: Located on two downtown campuses in Richmond, Va., Virginia Commonwealth University is ranked nationally by the Carnegie Foundation as a top research institution and enrolls more than 28,500 students in more than 181 certificate, undergraduate, graduate, professional and doctoral programs in the arts, sciences and humanities in 15 schools and one college. Forty of the university¡_s programs are unique in Virginia, and 20 graduate and professional programs have been ranked by U.S. News & World Report as among the best of their kind. MCV Hospitals, clinics and the health sciences schools of Virginia Commonwealth University compose the VCU Medical Center, one of the leading academic medical centers in the country. For more, see http://www.vcu.edu .

Sathya Achia-Abraham
sbachia@vcu.edu
804-827-0890
Virginia Commonwealth University
http://www.vcu.edu

• Additional
• References
• Citations