Cultures of human cord blood metachromatic cells in relation to family history of atopy, development of atopic disease, nasal metachromatic cells and perinatal factors.

The appearance of basophilic cells by maturation from progenitors was studied in cultures of cord blood mononuclear cells (CB-MNC) from 83 newborns. In unstimulated cultures, the numbers of basophilic cells increased 5-fold after 14 days of cultivation. This increase and the cell numbers were similar in cultures from atopic individuals and controls. Other cultures were stimulated with conditioned medium (CM) prepared from 3-day cultures of blood cells from atopic individuals activated with allergen or with CM from the Mo leukemic cell line. The addition of such CM resulted in an increase in the number of basophilic cells, as compared to the cultures which were unstimulated (p less than 0.01). No correlation was found between the maturation of basophils and heredity for atopy, development of atopic disease, appearance of metachromatic cells in the nasal mucosa and perinatal factors, such as maternal infections, perinatal stress, birth weight, month of birth and IgE levels. The study confirmed that basophilic cells can be driven to mature in cultures of CB-MNC, although the maturation did not seem to depend on atopic predisposition as indicated by family history of allergy and CB IgE levels nor on symptoms and signs of atopic disease during the first 18 months of life. Therefore, the predictive value of elevated basophilic cell numbers in CB or CB-MNC cultures with regard to allergic disease seemed to be limited.