title: Interleukin-4 and its alternatively spliced variant (IL-4delta2) in patients with atopic asthma.
abstract: The interleukin-4 (IL-4) splice variant (IL-4delta2) is known to antagonize many biological activities of IL-4, and this challenges our understanding of the role of IL-4 in asthma. Studies that have used nonspecific antibodies, probes, and/or primers to quantify IL-4 in clinical samples would not have distinguished the expression of IL-4 from IL-4delta2. This is the first study to examine patients with chronic asthma and atopy for IL-4delta2 mRNA in their peripheral blood mononuclear cells without antigen stimulation, using a quantitative nested reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) protocol. The median IL-4 mRNA copy number in cells from the patients with asthma was 2.8 logs higher than in a comparator group of patients with tuberculosis (p = 0.0005) and 4.5 logs higher (p = 0.0004) than in healthy control subjects. In contrast, IL-4delta2 expression in cells from patients with asthma was similar to that seen in cells from patients with tuberculosis. Hence, the median ratio of IL-4 to IL-4delta2 was 500-fold higher in the patients with asthma when compared with either patients with tuberculosis or healthy control subjects. The relative expression of IL-4 and IL-4delta2 may be a reason for the functional diversity of Th2 cells in different clinical conditions, and a hitherto unexplored mechanism for the pulmonary pathology in patients with atopic asthma.
authors.affiliation: Windeyer Institute of Medical Sciences, Royal Free and University College Medical School, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: G T
authors.initials: GT
authors.lastname: Seah
authors.forename: P S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Hopkin
authors.forename: G A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Rook
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001249:Asthma / Q000097:blood / Q000209:etiology / Q000276:immunology*; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005260:Female; D015870:Gene Expression; D006801:Humans; D015847:Interleukin-4 / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000032:analysis; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D014397:Tuberculosis, Pulmonary / Q000097:blood
chemical_list: D012333:RNA, Messenger; D015847:Interleukin-4