Abstract
In pulmonary sarcoidosis or experimental granuloma formation, interleukin-1 beta (IL-1 beta) or tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) are considered to play important roles during inflammatory evolution. In order to examine whether IL-1 beta or TNF-alpha mRNA expression on lung macrophages relates to the disease activity or clinical course, ten cases with pulmonary sarcoidosis were divided into two groups: five cases who had a disease duration of more than 10 years (14.6 +/- 4.4 years; group A), and 5 cases with duration of less than 3 years (1.7 +/- 1.1 years; group B). All cases showed both abnormal radiographs and elevated serum angiotensin converting enzyme activities. We compared the 10 cases with 12 healthy individuals as normal control (6 nonsmokers: NS and 6 current smokers: S), and 5 cases with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) as disease control. Lavage macrophages were purified by rosette forming method and plastic adhesion was then performed for 1 hour. Thereafter mRNA was extracted by AGPC method and amplified by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) (20 cycles). The results showed that IL-1 beta mRNA was detected in all materials studied, but TNF-alpha mRNA expression was different among the groups: 5/5 (100%) in group A, 1/5 (25%) in group B, 5/5 (100%) in IPF, and 12/12 (100%) in normal controls. The absence of detection of TNF-alpha mRNA (rapid down regulation) in pulmonary sarcoidosis may relate to spontaneous regression, because a substantial number of cases in group B showed spontaneous regression in their natural course.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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