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Invariant natural killer T cells in asthma and COPD: back to square one!

Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center at Harlem Hospital, New York, NY, USA; san14@columbia.edu

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Vijayanand P, Seumois G, Pickard C, et al. Invariant natural killer T cells in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. N Engl J Med 2007;356:1410–22.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Recent studies have suggested the possibility of invariant natural killer T cells (iNKT) playing an important role in the pathogenesis of asthma. To explore this hypothesis, the authors measured the numbers of iNKT in the airways of patients with stable mild/moderate asthma, patients with stable or exacerbated chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and controls.

Cells from induced sputum, bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and/or bronchial biopsies were labelled with fluorescent monoclonal antibodies for CD3, CD4 and iNKT specific domains: V24, Vß11, V24-J18 and CD1d tetramers loaded with galactosylceramide. Flow cytometry with serial gating was used for phenotyping and excluded cells other than iNKT—the failure to do so may have been a drawback of a previous study. Quantitative polymerase . . . [Full text of this article]