Diminished priming of neonatal polymorphonuclear leukocytes by lipopolysaccharide is associated with reduced CD14 expression.

Previous research in our laboratory has shown that polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) from neonates are not primed effectively in vitro with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) (from Escherichia coli 0111:B4) compared with priming of adult PMN. This finding led us to speculate that differences between neonatal and adult LPS receptors may account for the lower response by neonatal PMN to LPS. In these experiments, we investigated if CD14 or other LPS receptors contribute to the priming activity of PMN by LPS. We found that unprimed neonatal and adult PMN expressed similar numbers of CD14 (11.6 +/- 9.2 versus 18.6 +/- 2.7 fluorescence units [FlU]; P > 0.05) and LPS-binding sites (2.94 +/- 1.4 versus 4.94 +/- 0.79 FlU; P > 0.05). Monoclonal antibody against CD14 (MY4) did not significantly change the binding of LPS to adult unprimed PMN, suggesting that LPS receptors other than CD14 receptors are predominant on PMN. However, when PMN were pretreated with LPS (10 ng/ml) for 45 min at 37 degrees C, expression of CD14 on adult PMN increased to 33.8 +/- 4.9 FlU (P < 0.05 versus unprimed adult PMN) while that on neonatal PMN showed little change, increasing to 17.2 +/- 10.3 FlU (P > 0.05 versus unprimed neonatal PMN; P < 0.05 versus primed adult PMN). Furthermore, MY4 specifically blocked oxidative-radical production from PMN primed with LPS (10 ng/ml) compared with that from control PMN (P < 0.01). These studies suggest that LPS primes PMN by activating CD14 expression. We conclude that lower expression of CD14 or failure to up-regulate CD14 after LPS pretreatment contributes to the inability of neonatal PMN to be primed by LPS.