The role of chymase in ionophore-induced histamine release from human pulmonary mast cells.

Human pulmonary mast cells contain the serine proteases tryptase and chymase. Chymase is present in much smaller quantities than tryptase. The definite physiological role of both enzymes remains to be elucidated, angiotensin processing has been proposed as one possible function of chymase. A dose-dependent inhibition of A 23187-induced histamine release from dispersed human lung mast cells was observed after pretreatment with diisopropylfluorophosphate (DFP) or 1-1-tosyamide-2-phenylethyl chloromethyl ketone (TPCK) but not with N-2-p-tosyl-1-lysine chloromethyl ketone (TLCK). In contrast, no inhibition was observed under the same conditions with isolated rat peritoneal mast cells. These results indicate that a chymase is probably an important factor in a late phase of human lung mast cell activation. Current work focuses on the isolation of human lung chymase to further investigate this topic.