Production of hypochlorous acid (HOCl) in neutrophils, a critical oxidant involved in bacterial killing, requires chloride anions. Because the primary defect of cystic fibrosis (CF) is the loss of chloride transport function of the CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR), we hypothesized that CF neutrophils may be deficient in chlorination of bacterial components due to a limited chloride supply to the phagolysosomal compartment. Multiple approaches, including RT-PCR, immunofluorescence staining, and immunoblotting, were used to demonstrate that CFTR is expressed in resting neutrophils at the mRNA and protein levels. Probing fractions of resting neutrophils isolated by Percoll gradient fractionation and free flow electrophoresis for CFTR revealed its presence exclusively in secretory vesicles. The CFTR chloride channel was also detected in phagolysosomes, a special organelle formed after phagocytosis. Interestingly, HL-60 cells, a human promyelocytic leukemia cell line, upregulated CFTR expresssion when induced to differentiate into neutrophils with DMSO, strongly suggesting its potential role in mature neutrophil function. Analyses by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC-MS) revealed that neutrophils from CF patients had a defect in their ability to chlorinate bacterial proteins from Pseudomonas aeruginosa metabolically prelabeled with [(13)C]-l-tyrosine, unveiling defective intraphagolysosomal HOCl production. In contrast, both normal and CF neutrophils exhibited normal extracellular production of HOCl when stimulated with phorbol ester, indicating that CF neutrophils had the normal ability to produce this oxidant in the extracellular medium. This report provides evidence which suggests that CFTR channel expression in neutrophils and its dysfunction affect neutrophil chlorination of phagocytosed bacteria.

Cystic fibrosis (CF), the most prevalent, fatal genetic disorder in the Caucasian population, is caused by mutations of CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). The mutations of this chloride channel alter the transport of chloride and associated liquid and thereby impair lung defenses. Patients typically succumb to chronic bacterial infections and respiratory failure. Restoration of the abnormal CFTR function to CF airway epithelium is considered the most direct way to treat the disease. In this report, we explore the potential of adult stem cells from bone marrow, referred to as mesenchymal or marrow stromal stem cells (MSCs), to provide a therapy for CF. We found that MSCs possess the capacity of differentiating into airway epithelia. MSCs from CF patients are amenable to CFTR gene correction, and expression of CFTR does not influence the pluripotency of MSCs. Moreover, the CFTRcorrected MSCs from CF patients are able to contribute to apical Cl ؊ secretion in response to cAMP agonist stimulation, suggesting the possibility of developing cell-based therapy for CF. The ex vivo coculture system established in this report offers an invaluable approach for selection of stem-cell populations that may have greater potency in lung differentiation.

Chloride anion is essential for myeloperoxidase to produce hypochlorous acid (HOCl) in neutrophils (PMNs). To define whether chloride availability to PMNs affects their HOCl production and microbicidal capacity, we examined how extracellular chloride concentration affects killing of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PsA) by normal neutrophils. PMN-mediated bacterial killing was strongly dependent on extracellular chloride concentration. Neutrophils in a chloride-deficient medium killed PsA poorly. However, as the chloride level was raised, the killing efficiency increased in a dosedependent fashion. By using specific inhibitors to selectively block NADPH-oxidase, MPO and CFTR functions, neutrophil-mediated killing of PsA could be attributed to three distinct mechanisms: 1) CFTR-dependent and oxidant-dependent, 2) chloride-dependent but not CFTR-and oxidantdependent, and 3) independent of any of the tested factors. Therefore, chloride anion is involved in both oxidant-and non-oxidant-mediated bacterial killing. We previously reported that neutrophils from cystic fibrosis (CF) patients are defective in chlorination of ingested bacteria, suggesting that the chloride channel defect might impair the MPO-H 2 O 2 -chloride microbicidal function. Here, we compared the competence of killing PsA by neutrophils from normal donors and CF patients. The data demonstrate that the killing rate by CF neutrophils was significantly lower than that by normal neutrophils. CF neutrophils in a chloride-deficient environment had only 1/3 of the bactericidal capacity of normal neutrophils in a physiological chloride environment. These results suggest that CFTR-dependent chloride anion transport contributes significantly to killing PsA by normal neutrophils and, when defective as in CF, may compromise the ability to clear PsA.

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When exposed to the N-formylated chemoattractant peptides, neutrophils undergo a transient ruffling followed by a polarization that involves a redistribution of F-actin (Fechheimer, M., and S. H. Zigmond, 1983, Cell Motil., 3:349-361). The cells also undergo a biphasic right angle light scatter response whose first phase is maximal 10-15 s after exposure to the stimulus, and whose second phase is longer in duration and maximal only after 1 min or more (Yuli, I., and R. Snyderman, 1984, J. Clin. Invest. 73:1408-1417). We now report that the first phase is accompanied by a transient polymerization of actin (monitored by cytometric analysis of phallacidin staining according to the method of Howard, T. H., and W. H. Meyer, 1984, J. Cell Biol., 98:1265-1271) and the second phase is accompanied by a more sustained polymerization of actin. Based on correlated measurements of ligand binding (Sklar, L. A., D. A. Finney, Z. G. Oades, A. J. Jesaitis, R. G. Painter, and C. G. Cochrane, 1984, J. Biol. Chem., 259:5661-5669) and intracellular Ca++ elevation (under conditions where we use the fluorescent Ca++ chelator Quin 2 to modulate intracellular Ca++ levels), we conclude that this first phase requires less than 100 receptors/cell (out of 50,000) and does not require the release of intracellular stores of Ca++. In contrast, the sustained polymerization requires both the occupancy of thousands of receptors (an estimated 10% of the receptors per minute) and may be somewhat sensitive to the availability of intracellular Ca++. When ligand binding is interrupted, F-actin rapidly depolymerizes with a half-time of no greater than approximately 15 s, and the transient light scatter response decays toward its initial value in parallel. Partial disaggregation of the cells follows the recovery of these responses. Based on these observations, we suggest that transient actin polymerization and transient cell ruffling give rise to transient aggregation as long as degranulation is limited.

Chloride serves as a critical component of innate host defense against infection, providing the substrate for MPO-catalyzed production of HOCl in the phagosome of human neutrophils. Here, we used halide-specific fluorescent sensors covalently coupled to zymosan particles to investigate the kinetics of chloride and iodide transport in phagosomes of human neutrophils. Using the self-ratioable fluorescent probe specific for chloride anion, we measured chloride dynamics within phagosomes in response to extracellular chloride changes by quantitative fluorescence microscopy. Under the experimental conditions used, normal neutrophils showed rapid phagosomal chloride uptake with an initial influx rate of 0.31 +/- 0.04 mM/s (n=5). GlyH-101, a CFTR(inh), decreased the rate of uptake in a dose-dependent manner. Neutrophils isolated from CF patients showed a significantly slower rate of chloride uptake by phagosomes, having an initial influx rate of 0.043 +/- 0.012 mM/s (n=5). Interestingly, the steady-state level of chloride in CF phagosomes was approximately 26 mM, significantly lower than that of the control ( approximately 68 mM). As CFTR transports chloride as well as other halides, we conjugated an iodide-sensitive probe as an independent approach to confirm the results. The dynamics of iodide uptake by neutrophil phagosomes were monitored by flow cytometry. CFTR(inh)172 blocked 40-50% of the overall iodide uptake by phagosomes in normal neutrophils. In a parallel manner, the level of iodide uptake by CF phagosomes was only 20-30% of that of the control. Taken together, these results implicate CFTR in transporting halides into the phagosomal lumen.

When human granulocytes were exposed to 50 nM N-formyl-Met-Leu-[ 3 H]Phe at 37°C they rapidly formed ligand-receptor complexes that dissociated 50-100 times more slowly than those on cells initially exposed to the peptide at 4°C . These complexes of apparent higher affinity were stable after detergent solubilization of the cells with Triton X-100. The complexes co-isolated with the detergent insoluble cytoskeletal residues and were free of the cytosolic and Golgi markers, lactate dehydrogenase and galactosyl transferase, respectively .After 5 s of exposure to f-Met-Leu-Phe, 2,000-3,000 molecules of ligand per cell were trapped in such complexes. Continued exposure resulted in capture of a maximum of 14,000 molecules per cell by 5 min . Exposure at 15°C, a temperature at which endocytosis of the receptor is prevented, resulted in complex formation at a linear rate for at least 20 min to levels twice those measured at 37°C . At 4°C, complex formation was -10% of the maximum amount formed at 37°C . Pulse-chase experiments revealed that the complex was in transient association with the cytoskeleton with a half life ranging between 30 s to 4 min depending on the length of the original incubation . Electron microscopic autoradiography indicated that after 1 min of incubation at 37°C, the majority of the specific autoradiographic grains were localized to the outer circumference of the cellular cytoskeleton . After 4 min of incubation, the grains were less frequent at the cytoskeleton periphery but still threefold enriched over a random cellular distribution . We conclude that a metabolically controlled modulation of the state of the N-formyl chemotactic peptide receptor occurs in the plasma membrane which may be the result of transient association of ligand-receptor complex and the cell cytoskeleton .

We have previously proposed the hypothesis that asymmetric membranes behave like bilayer couples: the two layers of the bilayer membrane can respond differently to a particular perturbation. Such a perturbation, for example, can result in the expansion of one layer relative to the other, thereby producing a curvature of that membrane. In experiments with erythrocytes and lymphocytes, we now demonstrate that different membrane perturbations which have opposite effects on membrane curvature can compensate and neutralize one another, as expected from the bilayer couple hypothesis. This provides a rational basis, for example, for understanding the effects of amphipathic drugs on a variety of cellular phenomena which involve shape changes of membranes.In two recent papers (14, 15) we have proposed and experimentally tested the hypothesis that biological membranes behave like bilayer couples; that is, the two halves of the bilayer membrane, if they differ in their protein and lipid constituents, can respond differently to membrane perturbations. For example, the two half-layers of the membrane may expand or contract differently in the plane of the membrane; if the membrane forms a closed surface, a change in the relative surface areas of the two halves would lead to changes in the curvature of the membrane. This hypothesis was then applied to the interaction of amphipathic drugs with intact human erythrocytes. A wide range of drugs, most of them negatively charged under physiological conditions, are known to cause erythrocytes to crenate; another broad spectrum of drugs, all positively charged, cause the erythrocyte to assume an invaginated or cup shape (3). It was proposed (14) that in the concentration ranges in which they induce these shape changes, all of these drugs bind to the membrane by intercalating their hydrophobic portions into the lipid bilayer with their ionic heads in the membrane surfaces; and that drugs which are crenators bind preferentially into and expand the outer half-layer of the membrane, while the cupformers bind preferentially into and expand the inner half-layer, thus producing the respective shape changes observed. The different equilibrium binding of anionic crenators and cationic cup-formers to the lipid in the two half-layers of the erythrocyte membrane was attributed to electrostatic interaction with the negatively charged lipid phosphatidylserine which is largly confined to the inner half-layer (1,5,23). A mechanical treatment of the bending of bilayers has led Evans (4) to suggest independently that the drug-induced crenation of intact erythrocytes is due to an expansion of outer vs. inner half-layers of the membrane.In principle, any of a wide variety of membrane