Chemotactic heterogeneity of eosinophils in Kimura's disease.

We evaluated the chemotactic heterogeneity of eosinophils in Kimura's disease. Patients with Kimura's disease were divided into two groups according to their clinical findings: one group had no other symptoms (KD), and another was accompanied with atopic dermatitis (KD + AD). The chemotactic response of eosinophils from two groups to 5 eosinophil chemotactic factors (ECF) derived from STO-2, an established T cell line. Eosinophils from KD were attracted only by ECF-PI5 and PI6 but not by ECF-PI7, PI8 and PI9. On the other hand, eosinophils from KD + AD responded to all 5 ECF. Eosinophils were further fractionated into normodense and hypodense eosinophils, and assessed for their chemotactic response. We thus found that there was little essential difference in their chemotactic responses to STO-2-derived ECF except ECF-PI9, though random migration of hypodense eosinophils was enhanced. The hypothesis that hypodense eosinophils are in the activated form was not always true, especially in the chemotactic response to ECF.