Relationship between TNF-alpha, IL-6 and their soluble receptors in the cultures of human PMN, PBMC and WBC.

Numerous clinical and experimental studies have focused on the measurement of cytokines as well as their regulatory proteins, produced by peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) or whole blood cells (WBC) as parameters for the immune cellular potential of the host. Much less is known about the contribution of neutrophils or polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) in generating TNF-alpha and IL-6 as well as their soluble receptors. In order to compare the role of PMN to other cells of peripheral blood in the secretion of these mediators we estimated here their release by PMN, PBMC and WBC taken from the same blood samples of healthy donors. A significant similarity in the release of IL-6 by PMN, PBMC and WBC indicate that PMN could be an important source of this cytokine in inflammatory and immune reactions. Although PMN exhibited a lower ability to secretion of sIL-6R, TNF-alpha and sTNFRs, the similar relationships between them in the culture supernatants of PMN, PBMC and WBC indicate on the same ability for contribution in reactions controlled by IL-6 and TNF-alpha. Data presented here in data suggest the possibility of employing PMN to examination the cellular innate response of the host.