BACKGROUND Recent studies have suggested that eosinophils may have a direct effect on airway smooth muscle cells (ASMC), causing their proliferation in patients with asthma, but the precise mechanism of the interaction between these cells remains unknown. We propose that changes in Wnt signaling activity and extracellular matrix (ECM) production may help explain these findings. Therefore, the a...

Increased numbers of eosinophils have been found in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid obtained from patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). This suggests the presence of one or more cytokines in the lung tissue of patients with IPF, which are involved in the induction of migration of eosinophils towards the pulmonary compartment. To evaluate this hypothesis, we studied migratory res...

Eosinophil responses typify both allergic and parasitic helminth disease. In helminthic disease, the role of eosinophils can be both protective in immune responses and destructive in pathological responses. To investigate whether eosinophils are involved in both protection and pathology during filarial nematode infection, we explored the role of eosinophils and their granule proteins, eosinophi...

Several studies have demonstrated roles for eosinophils during innate and adaptive immune responses to helminth infections. However, evidence that eosinophils are capable of initiating an immune response to parasite antigens is lacking. The goal of the present in vitro study was to investigate the potential of eosinophils to serve as antigen-presenting cells (APC) and initiate an immune respons...

Inflammatory action of the potent chemotaxin C5a has been well characterized on a variety of human cell types, including neutrophils, monocytes, basophils, and eosinophils. The cellular effects of C3a are less well defined. Contradictory reports have been published for C3a activation of neutrophils. Recent reports that C3a activates both basophils and eosinophils prompted us to reinvestigate th...

Eosinophils are one of the key inflammatory cells in asthma. Eosinophils can exert a wide variety of actions through expression and secretion of multiple molecules. Previously, we have demonstrated that eosinophils purified from peripheral blood from asthma patients express high levels of suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 (SOCS3). In this article, SOCS3 gene silencing in eosinophils from asthm...

Transforming growth factor a (TGF-a) is a pleuripotential cytokine with diverse biological effects, including the ability to influence the proliferation of normal cells or neoplastic epithelial cells . Eosinophils are a subset of granulocytes that normally enter the peripheral tissues, particularly those beneath gastrointestinal, respiratory, and urogenital epithelium, where they reside in clos...

Transforming growth factor alpha (TGF-alpha) is a pleuripotential cytokine with diverse biological effects, including the ability to influence the proliferation of normal cells or neoplastic epithelial cells. Eosinophils are a subset of granulocytes that normally enter the peripheral tissues, particularly those beneath gastrointestinal, respiratory, and urogenital epithelium, where they reside ...

In experiments with suspensions of cells from colonic carcinomas, we noted that some colonic carcinomas contain large numbers of eosinophils. We therefore carried out a prospective study with 67 almost consecutive colonic carcinomas in our medical center after optimal fixation and staining for the demonstration of eosinophils. Infiltration of the primary tumor by eosinophils was found to have m...

Eosinophils play proinflammatory roles in helminth infections and allergic diseases. Under steady-state conditions, eosinophils are abundantly found in the small intestinal lamina propria, but their physiological function is largely unexplored. In this study, we found that small intestinal eosinophils down-regulate Th17 cells. Th17 cells in the small intestine were markedly increased in the Δdb...