NEUTROPHILS FROM HUMAN INFANTS EXHIBIT DECREASED VIABILITY

  • 1 January 1981
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 15  (5) , 794-797
Abstract
The viability of neutrophils, isolated from infant blood and placed into liquid culture, was decreased when compared to that of neutrophils obtained from mothers and controls that had been stored under identical conditions (percentage viable after 20 h of culture was 49, 75 and 78 for infant, maternal and control neutrophils, respectively). Increased quantities of H2O2 were released into the extracellular culture media by nonphagocytic neutrophils from infants (0.25 nM/min per 2.5 .times. 106 neutrophils compared to 0.14 for controls), a condition that could promote autooxidation becaused infant neutrophils are deficient in glutathione peroxidase and catalase (enzymes that detoxify H2O2. Results of 2 studies supported the idea that cell death in culture was related to oxidative damage: phagocytosis induced a loss of viability in maternal and control neutrophils of a similar degree (48 and 52% viable, respectively) to that exhibited by nonphagocytic infant cells (47% viable), a finding prevented by superoxide dismutase and catalase; glucose oxidase-glucose, a hydrogen peroxide-generating system, accelerated death of nonphagocytic neutrophils in culture. Decreased viability of infant neutrophils is similarly present in vivo (e.g., in inflammatory exudates); this finding contributes to the impairment of host defenses. Autooxidation may possibly contribute to the dysfunction of neutrophils from human infants.

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit: