Jf. Sweeney et al., ULTRAVIOLET-IRRADIATION ACCELERATES APOPTOSIS IN HUMAN POLYMORPHONUCLEAR LEUKOCYTES - PROTECTION BY LPS AND GM-CSF, Journal of leukocyte biology, 62(4), 1997, pp. 517-523
Polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) play a central role in host respons
e to injury and infection, Understanding factors that regulate PMN sur
vival may therefore have a major influence on the development of novel
treatment strategies for controlling life-threatening infections, as
well as local and systemic inflammatory responses, Unfortunately, the
presently utilized in vitro culture model of PMN apoptosis makes the e
xamination of early biochemical events surrounding PMN apoptosis very
difficult, This study demonstrates that a short course of UV irradiati
on (15 min) can be used to induce rapid progression of PMN through the
apoptotic process with 70-90% of PMN displaying features of apoptosis
by 4 h after UV exposure, Bacterial lipopolysaccharide and granulocyt
e-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, which are known to prolong PMN
survival during in vitro culture, also protected PMN from UV-accelera
ted apoptosis, The UV-accelerated model of PMN apoptosis provides anot
her valuable tool for the investigation of early signaling pathways as
sociated with inducing or delaying PMN apoptosis.