Abstract
Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) not only increases neutrophil (polymorphonuclear leukocyte, PMNL) production but also modulates PMNL biologic function. To assess the ability of G-CSF administered in vivo to enhance PMNL activity against opportunistic fungal pathogens, the antifungal activity of PMNL obtained from normal human volunteers before and after G-CSF administration was compared. In vivo, G-CSF significantly enhanced PMNL-mediated killing of Aspergillus fumigatus and Rhizopus arrhizus by 4-fold and 15-fold, respectively (P < .05). In contrast, PMNL- mediated killing of Candida albicans was unaffected by G-CSF. The ability of aqueous fungal extracts to induce the PMNL respiratory burst was evaluated by luminol-enhanced chemiluminescence. G-CSF in vivo primed PMNL for sustained chemiluminescence in response to extracts of Candida, Aspergillus, and Rhizopus organisms. These data demonstrate that G-CSF in vivo augments antifungal activities of PMNL, thereby implicating a possible therapeutic role for G-CSF as a biologic response-modifying agent during opportunistic fungal infection.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1012-1015 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| Journal | Journal of Infectious Diseases |
| Volume | 175 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1997 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Financial support: W.C.L. is a P®zer Postdoctoral Fellow; J.-A.H.v.B. is recipient of a Joel D. Meyers Endowed Scholarship; and J.E.H. was the recipient of a medical student summer research fellowship from Amgen (Thousand Oaks, CA). The study was supported by NIH (HL-53515, HL-36444, and CA-18029). Recombinant human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor was supplied by Amgen.