Mitogenic response and interleukin 2 production in Crohn's disease.

The present study was carried out to investigate the involvement of prostaglandin E (PGE) for mitogenic response and interleukin 2 (IL-2) production in patients with Crohn's disease (CD). Mitogenic response and IL-2 production in CD patients were significantly reduced in comparison with the values obtained in healthy donors, the control, (HD, p less than 0.05). Slight increases of mitogenic response and IL-2 production were observed in the presence of indomethacin (IM) in both CD patients and HD, but the differences between the values of them were still significant (p less than 0.05) resulting in less involvement of PGE for the reductions of mitogenic response and IL-2 production in CD patients. Moreover, phytohemagglutinin (PHA) response after addition of IL-2 in CD patients increased remarkably and became equal to that of HD. These results indicate that the reductions of mitogenic response and IL-2 production in CD patients are neither due to the suppression of T cell function by PGE nor the impairment of IL-2 responders.