Circulating Eosinophil Colony-Forming Cells in Pure Eosinophil Aplasia

doi:10.1059/0003-4819-101-3-321

Circulating Eosinophil Colony-Forming Cells in Pure Eosinophil Aplasia

Charleston, South Carolina; Boston, Massachusetts; and San Francisco, California

Abstract

Using a methylcellulose clonal culture method, we found eosinophil colony-forming cells in the blood of two patients: a 46-year-old white woman with a long history of urticaria and allergic rhinitis and complete absence of eosinophils secondary to IgG-mediated and complement-mediated destruction of her eosinophils; and a white woman with a history of allergic rhinitis and asthma and a complete absence of eosinophils in her peripheral blood. Addition of the patients' plasma or IgG to cultures of peripheral blood mononuclear cells derived from normal persons or the patients inhibited formation of eosinophil colonies without influencing colony formation in other hemopoietic cell lineages. In contrast, normal plasma or IgG had no effect on the formation of eosinophil colonies. That the IgG-mediated cytotoxic activity of eosinophils prevents the expression of an apparently normal eosimophilopoietic potential suggests an autoimmune basis for the eosinophil aplasia.

Article and Author Information

▸From the Departments of Medicine and Pathology, Medical University of South Carolina, and the Veterans Administration Medical Center, Charleston, South Carolina; Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; and Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, California.
Grant support: by grants HL20913, AI19784, and AM 10956 from the National Institutes of Health, and the Veterans Administration. Dr. Ogawa is a Veterans Administration Medical Investigator. Dr. Goetzl is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
▸Requests for reprints should be addressed to Makio Ogawa, M.D., PhD.; Research Service, Veterans Administration Medical Center, 109 Bee Street; Charleston, SC 29403.