Antagonism between histamine and polyamines in mast cells

Abstract

Among histamine-containing cells, mast cells (MCs) are immediately associated with allergic diseases and other pathologies. After leaving the bone marrow as immature precursors, MCs differentiate under the infl uence of micro-environmental stimuli within the peripheral tissues, where they synthesize and store several mediators including histamine, cytokines and MC proteases [1]. As with any other cell type, MCs also require polyamines (putrescine, spermidine and spermine) for macromolecular synthesis and proliferation [2]. Working with MC-like cell lines, we have previously observed that treatments which increase intracellular histamine levels provoke a downregulation of total polyamines at the expense of different mechanisms [3, 4]. These observations indicated an antagonism between both metabolisms in this cell type. However, MC-like cell lines, due to their lack of many MC-features, represent a poor counterpart of the mature MCs that reside in the body, and they do not constitute a suitable model to study any putative relationship between histamine and polyamine metabolism during the course of the MCs differentiation. Here we show that bone marrow derived MCs (BMMCs), which represent a better approach to this cell type, provide an excellent model to characterize both histamine and polyamines metabolism and their antagonistic interplay during the differentiation of MCs from their cell precursors in the bone marrow.