Leukocytes in chemotactic-fragment-induced lung inflammation. Vascular emigration and alveolar surface migration.

Lung inflammation was induced in rabbits by intratracheal injections of chemotactic fragments obtained from zymosan-activated serum (CF-ZAS), and the route of vascular emigration and alveolar surface interaction of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) and monocytes migrating into the lung was characterized by transmission (TEM) and scanning (SEM) electron-microscopic examination. Leukocytes migrated from capillaries and venules into the alveolar wall interstitium by adherence to the vascular endothelium and migration through the endothelial intracellular junction to attain a position between a reapposed endothelial cell junction and the vascular basement membrane. The cells then migrated into the interstitium through a narrow opening in the basement membrane. Leukocyte entrance into the alveolar space from the interstitium appeared to occur through small openings in the epithelial basement membrane at or near the Type I epithelial intercellular junction. Once in the alveolus, PMNs and macrophages demonstrated surface adherence and spreading along with evidence of migration, pseudopod extension, interalveolar pore transit, and retraction fiber formation. This study indicates the leukocyte influx into the alveolus in acute chemotactic-factor-induced inflammation is via a continuum of migrational activity, beginning at the pulmonary capillary endothelial surface and persisting on the alveolar epithelial surface.