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Tuesday, 06/15/2010
The microenvironment in the lung modulates the activation of macrophages leading to different patterns of inflammatory response
This work of Daniel Closa and Antoni Torres groups is published in the online version of the European Respiratory Journal
In large series of nonresponding community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) patients, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was observed to be a protective factor for nonresponse to initial antibiotics. This intriguing fact may be linked to changes in the phenotype of inflammatory cells and, in particular, to the induction of classical-M1 or alternative-M2 activation of macrophages, which result in different inflammatory profiles.
We evaluated the effect of sputum obtained from patients with acute exacerbation of COPD (AECOPD), CAP, and COPD plus CAP on the phenotypic changes in macrophages. Human THP1 cells differentiated to macrophages were incubated with sputum from patients with AECOPD, CAP or COPD plus CAP, and expression of TNFα, IL-6, mannose receptor and arginase was measured to evaluate the phenotype acquired by macrophages.
The results indicate that microenvironment in the lung modulates the activation of macrophages, resulting in different phenotypes in AECOPD, CAP and COPD plus CAP patients. This different type of activation induces different inflammatory responses and may be involved in the different outcome observed when COPD and CAP are present simultaneously.
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