Existence of basophil chemotaxis in subjects with hay fever.

From an earlier study we proposed that the relative peripheral basophilia of subjects with symptomatic hay fever might be associated with a basophil chemotactic factor in the serum. Six subjects with symptomatic hay fever and six nonallergic subjects were tested for basophil chemotaxis (BC) weekly during and after the hay fever season. Cells of the allergic subjects with autologous serum showed significantly more BC than with control serum during the symptomatic weeks. After they hay fever season there was no difference in BC between the allergic and nonallergic groups. We conclude that there is a BC factor(s) in the serum of symptomatic subjects with hay fever which requires basophils from symptomatic subjects to be demonstrable.