Pulmonary recruitment, adherence, and chemotaxis of neutrophils in a rat model of cirrhosis and pneumococcal pneumonia.

Cirrhotic rats have decreased pulmonary bactericidal activity and increased bacteremia after experimental pneumococcal pneumonia. To determine if this finding is due to impaired pulmonary recruitment of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNL), bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) was done on cirrhotic and normal rats after transtracheal challenge with pneumococcal types 3 and 1. Mean absolute numbers of recruited PMNL in BAL fluid (BALF) at 2, 4, 6, 8, and 24 h after 10(7) cfu of type 3 challenge were similar in cirrhotic and normal rats. In both groups, lower numbers of PMNL were recruited after challenge with 10(5) cfu of type 3. Type 1 pneumococci stimulated recruitment of similar mean absolute numbers of PMNL (x10(7] in BALF (cirrhotics vs. normals) at 24 h after challenges with 10(5) cfu (0.3 +/- 0.1 vs. 0.3 +/- 0.1) and 10(7) cfu (2.9 +/- 1.3 vs. 2.8 +/- 0.7). Peripheral blood PMNL from cirrhotic and normal rats did not differ in adherence to nylon wool columns or in chemotaxis toward lipopolysaccharide-activated normal rat serum. Thus the impaired pulmonary defense against pneumococcal pneumonia in cirrhosis is not due to deficient pulmonary PMNL recruitment.