) and LFA-1 (␣ L /  2 ), the two major PMN surface integrins. We detected lumican on the surface of peritoneal PMNs and not bone marrow or peripheral blood PMNs. This suggests that PMNs must acquire lumican during or after crossing the endothelial barrier as they exit circulation. We also found that peritoneal PMNs do not express lumican, whereas endothelial cells do. Taken together these observations suggest a novel endothelial lumican-mediated paracrine regulation of neutrophils early on in their migration path.Polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs) 3 play a major role in the development of inflammatory responses to host injury and infection. Their functions include destruction of invading bacteria and recruitment of macrophages and lymphocytes to the affected site (1). Circulating PMNs sense injury and pathogen signals, cross the vascular endothelium, and migrate to the target tissue; two series of events control this process. The first leads to the slowing down and adherence of circulating PMNs on the vascular endothelium followed by their transendothelial migration or extravasation and activation (2). The second controls the directional migration of PMNs to the injured site through the endothelial basement membrane, a specialized type of ECM, and subsequently the deeper interstitial ECM, along chemokine and cytokine gradients. Leukocyte-to-leukocyte and leukocyte-to-endothelium interactions are important before extravasation. These are mediated by interactions between selectins and their ligands and by  2 (MAC-1 and LFA-1) and  1 (VLA-4 -6) integrin interactions with cell adhesion proteins ICAM and PECAM (3). The directional migration of PMNs through the ECM is a complex, multistep process that involves several ␣ and  integrin interactions with ECM proteins. Thus far, a few basement membrane proteins, laminins, entactin, and fibronectin have been identified as specific ligands in regulating migration of PMNs after extravasation (4 -6). Additional interstitial ECM proteins and their receptors that modulate PMN migration have yet to be identified. Here we show that the ECM protein lumican is a novel regulator of PMN migration.Lumican is a secreted collagen-binding ECM protein of the corneal, dermal, and tendon stroma, arterial wall, and the intestinal submucosa (7-9). It is a member of the small leucine-rich repeat proteoglycans (10); these were initially investigated in the context of binding collagen and regulating tissue structure and biomechanics (11,12). A body of literature is beginning to indicate that these proteoglycans interact with cytokines, growth factors, and cell surface receptors to modulate cell adhesion, proliferation, and migration (13-16). Lumican and biglycan, another member of this family of proteoglycans, have been recently shown to regulate host response to pathogenassociated molecular patterns (17, 18). Thus, lumican-deficient (Lum Ϫ/Ϫ ) mice are hyporesponsive to bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) endotoxins, and Lum Ϫ/Ϫ macrophages in culture produce lower levels of pro-inflammato...