Signal transduction events in stimulated rat neutrophils: effects of adenine nucleotides.

When rat neutrophils were stimulated with chemotactic peptide N-formyl-Met-Leu-Phe; fMLP), phorbol myristate acetate (PMA), or immune complexes in the presence of homologous platelets, O2- responses were enhanced. Secretion products of thrombin-stimulated platelets as well as ATP, ATP gamma S, or ADP enhanced O2- responses of fMLP-stimulated neutrophils, although these nucleotides did not, by themselves, initiate an O2- response. Calcium transients were measured in neutrophils which were stimulated with fMLP under a variety of conditions (+/- ATP gamma S, +/- cytochalasin B) which enhance O2- responses. Neutrophils incubated with ATP gamma S alone developed brief calcium transients similar to those produced by fMLP. As compared to changes in intracellular calcium in fMLP-stimulated neutrophils, the copresence of ATP gamma S with fMLP did not cause a statistically significant difference in the calcium transients, even though O2- production was enhanced. In contrast, in the presence of cytochalasin B, the addition of ATP gamma S to fMLP-stimulated neutrophils produced greatly sustained and protracted elevations in intracellular calcium, correlating with further enhancement of O2- responses. In fMLP-stimulated neutrophils the latter phases of the calcium transients appeared to be dependent in part on the availability of extracellular calcium. These data suggest that ATP gamma S-induced enhancement of O2- responses in fMLP-stimulated rat neutrophils may be related to two mechanisms, one being independent of fMLP-induced intracellular calcium transients and the other, which is related to the presence of cytochalasin B, being linked to sustained elevations in intracellular calcium associated with mobilization of extracellular calcium.