[The roles of adhesion molecules, cytokines and chemokines in relation to eosinophil activation in allergic inflammation].

Several characteristics of human eosinophil heterogeneity, as well as the existence of eosinophil subpopulations, "normodense" and "hypodense", have been reported in diseases associated with hypereosinophilia. Hypodense eosinophils can be distinguished by the increased expression of various membrane receptors including IL-5 receptor (J Exp Med 172:1347) and various protein expression (J Immunol 142:4416). Recently, adhesion molecules, as well as eosinophils, have been found to play an important role in the inflammatory processes in allergic disease. We demonstrated here as below: 1) Characteristics of adhesion molecules expression on eosinophils in asthma, namely, high-intensity expression of adhesion molecules. 2) Induction of adhesion molecule expression by PAF and RANTES and in addition induction by the supernatant of mononuclear cells from mite-allergic asthmatic patients stimulated with mite-allergen as well as with a combination of the recombinant IL-3, GM-CSF, and IL-5 (Immunol Lett 42:25, 1994 & 46:241, 1995). 3) Elevated soluble ICAM-1 in bronchial asthma (Lancet 343:1108, 1994).