Elevated interleukin-4 and interleukin-13 production by T cell lines from patients with Churg-Strauss syndrome

Objective. To investigate cytokine production patterns of T cell lines (TCL ) from patients with Churg-Strauss syndrome (CSS). Methods. Short-term polyclonal TCL were generated from peripheral blood of patients with CSS or Wegener's granulomatosis (WG) and healthy controls (HC ). TCL were established in the presence of interleukin-2 (IL-2) and phytohe magglutinin and were phenotypically characterized by flow cytometry. Th1/Th 2 cytokine production by stimulated TCL (72 hours) was analyzed by enzyme-l inked immunosorbent assay. Results. TCL that represented the progeny of in vivo-activated T cells from CSS patients displayed a heterogeneous immunophenotype, with a predominanc e of CD4+ T cells when compared with WG TCL, which were predominantly CD8+. All CSS TCL shared the ability to produce large amounts of interferon-gamm a (IFN gamma), IL-4, and IL-13 compared with HC (P = 0.014 for all 3). Prod uction of IL-4 and IL-13 was higher in CSS TCL than in WG TCL (P = 0.014 fo r both). IL-5 production was up-regulated in WG TCL compared with CSS TCL ( P = 0.014). Compared with HC, WG TCL showed increased production of IFN gam ma (P = 0.021), IL-5 (P 0.043), and IL-13 (P = 0.021). Conclusion. Our results indicate that, while there is evidence for both a t ype 1 and a type 2 response in CSS, type 2 cytokine production pattern appe ars to predominate in this disease when compared with WG and HC.