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 phytohemagglutinin and were phenotypically characterized by flow cytometry. Th1/ Th2 cytokine production by stimulated TCL (72 hours) was analyzed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.Results. TCL that represented the progeny of in vivo-activated T cells from CSS patients displayed a heterogeneous immunophenotype, with a predominance 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-␥ (IFN␥), IL-4, and IL-13 compared with HC ( P ؍ 0.014 for all 3). Production of IL-4 and IL-13 was higher in CSS TCL than in WG TCL (P ؍ 0.014 for 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␥ (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 type 1 and a type 2 response in CSS, type 2 cytokine production pattern appears to predominate in this disease when compared with WG and HC.
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