Specific production of eosinophil colony stimulating factor from sensitized T cells from a patient with allergic eosinophilia.

To explore the possibility that an eosinophil colony stimulating factor (EO-CSF) is elaborated independently of neutrophil CSF (N-CSF), we compared the effect on the production of EO-CSF and N-CSF of adding a specific antigen, an aspergillus extract, to peripheral blood leucocytes of an eosinophilic patient with allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis. Conditioned media prepared from the patient's mononuclear (MN) and T cells were assayed for EO-CSF and N-CSF activities by agar culture technique, using normal human nonphagocytic MN bone marrow cells as target cells. The addition of the specific antigen to the cultures of the patient's MN or T cells significantly stimulated the production of EO-CSF, but not that of N-CSF, while the patient's non-T cells and normal MN or T cells were not stimulated by the antigen challenge to produce either CSF. These results suggest that EO-CSF is a factor distinct from N-CSF, that its production is dependent on the presence of sensitized T cells with antigen-specific stimulation, and that it might be one of the causes of blood eosinophilia in this patient.