Eosinophils and cytokines.

Cytokines act on eosinophils to regulate eosinophil function, with IL-5 recognised to be especially important in control of eosinopoiesis, eosinophil survival and eosinophil priming. In addition, eosinophils have the capacity to produce cytokines involved in acute and chronic inflammatory and repair processes, as well as to produce cytokines that stimulate eosinophils within an autocrine loop. This paper describes (A) an immunomagnetic selection technique for the purification of human blood eosinophils, and (B) a method that employs immunofluorescence with flow cytometry for measurement of blood and sputum eosinophil surface markers. Having demonstrated that sputum eosinophils express HLA-DR, highly purified blood eosinophils were used to analyse (C) the induction and function of eosinophil HLA-DR. Cytokines have the capacity to induce eosinophil HLA-DR, and are produced by eosinophils as an accessory function during antigen presentation. Finally, preliminary data on (D) eosinophil production of IL-8 is presented. Hence, eosinophils have the capacity to act as immunomodulatory cells within cells networks in allergic and asthmatic inflammation.