ASSESSMENT OF NEUTROPHIL FUNCTION IN HEALTHY-VOLUNTEERS - EFFECTS OF AGE AND GENDER

In atherogenesis and myocardial reperfusion injury attention has been focused on polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN). Hence it is important to develop simple and reliable tests to distinguish normal PMN functio n from pathological conditions. In the following investigation three P MN function assays are tested for effects of age and gender in healthy volunteers, in particular a new method of PMN adhesion. Samples have been taken from 80 healthy volunteers (40 male, 40 female; 20 younger, 20 older than 40 years respectively). PMN were separated from whole b lood using density gradients. For PMN adhesion, PMN were run through t he capillary tube of a plasma viscosimeter where they can adhere to th e capillary surface. The adhesion index (NAD) was defined as the fract ion of adhering PMN resuspended in saline solution (N-NAD) or plasma ( P-NAD) compared to baseline values. PMN aggregation (NAG) was measured by differences in optical transmittance of a PMN suspension before an d after addition of aggregating inductors such as adenosinediphosphate (ADP), collagen (COL) and formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine (FMLP ). PMN activation (NBT) was measured by the ingestion of nitroblue tet razolium after PMN stimulation as phagocyting value (ph-NBT) and compa red to the resting value (r-NBT). The following parameters of PMN func tion proved to be independent of age and gender (U-Test; Mann-Whitney) : P-NAD(p(gender) = 0,3531, p(age) = 0,7254), NAG-ADP(p(gender) = 0,48 84, p(age) = 0,1544), NAG-COL (p(gender) = 0,6546, p(age) = 0,5444), N AG-FMLP (p(gender) = 0,8436, p(age) = 0,0675) and r-NBT (p(gender) = 0 ,1516, p(age) = 0,3708). With the described assays for PMN adhesion, a ggregation and activation simple and reliable tests of PMN function be ing independent of age and gender are available. Copyright (C) 1996 El sevier Science Ltd