Mast cells release cytokines in response to mediators produced by virus-infected epithelial cellss
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Mast cells have long been recognized for their involvement in allergic diseases. In the last decade, the importance of mast cells in innate responses against bacteria has been established, but little is known about their contribution in viral infections. Mast cells are abundant at mucosal surfaces such as the lungs in close proximity to the epithelium. In the lung, the epithelium is a primary target for viral infections. Mast cells are secondarily exposed to newly formed virions released from epithelial cells. Mast cells have toll-like receptors (TLRs) that detect various pathogen components. Our first hypothesis is that viral TLR agonists will induce mast cells to release cytokines thought to be involved in viral infections. Both the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-6 and the chemokine IL-8 are produced during viral infections. TGF-β is an immunoregulatory cytokine that modulates the activity of various immune cells and could also play a role in viral infections. Methods: We used polyI:C, a synthetic double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), as a TLR3 agonist, loxoribine as a TLR7 agonist, and unmethylated CpG DNA as a TLR9 agonist. We treated mast cells from the cell line HMC-1 (Human Mast cell-1) for 0.5 – 24hr with the TLR agonists and performed dose response studies for all stimuli. Supernatants from treated mast cells were measured for IL-6, IL-8, and TGF-β by ELISA. Results: Cytokine release was highest at the 24hr time point. Mast cells released IL-6, IL-8, and TGF-β in response to the TLR3 agonist polyI:C in a dose-dependent manner, but not to the other viral TLR agonists. PolyI:C (10μg/mL) versus unstimulated controls significantly increased mast cell release of IL-6 (224.7±57.4 vs. 39.0±5.7, p≤0.001) and TGF-β (240.2±28.9 vs. 116.1±16.7, p≤0.05). PolyI:C induced release of IL-8 from mast cells was increased but not significant. Viral exposure also induces epithelial cells to produce type I interferons, IFNα and β. These interferons have potent antiviral activity, but also have effects on mast cells, decreasing mast cell adhesion to extracellular matrix and reducing co-stimulatory activity on T cells. Our second hypothesis is that IFNα and β will induce mast cells to release cytokines similar to stimulation with polyI:C. Our preliminary data showed that IFNα, IFNβ , and IFNα and β in combination induced a low level of IL-8 and TGF-β release from mast cells, but had no effect on IL-6 release. Conclusion: HMC-1 responds to dsRNA, a TLR3 agonist produced in epithelial cells during viral replication, by releasing IL-6 and TGF-β. HMC-1 also responds to IFNα and β by releasing IL-8 and TGF-β, indicating that human mast cells respond to epithelial mediators produced during viral infections. Our results show that mast cells contribute to the innate response against viruses by responding to mediators released by virus-infected epithelial cells.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".