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Accessory cell function of airway epithelial cells

¹Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and ²Immunobiology Center, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York 10029; and ³Department of Molecular Immunology, Graduate School, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan

Submitted 29 May 2003 ; accepted in final form 6 February 2004

Oei, Erwin, Thomas Kalb, Prarthana Beuria, Matthieu Allez, Atsushi Nakazawa, Miyuki Azuma, Michael Timony, Zanetta Stuart, Houchu Chen, and Kirk Sperber. Accessory cell function of airway epithelial cells.

We previously demonstrated that airway epithelial cells (AECs) have many features of accessory cells, including expression of class II molecules CD80 and CD86 and functional Fc receptors. We have extended these studies to show that freshly isolated AECs have mRNA for cathepsins S, V, and H [proteases important in antigen (Ag) presentation], invariant chain, human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DM- and HLA-DM-, and CLIP, an invariant chain breakdown product. A physiologically relevant Ag, ragweed, was colocalized with HLA-DR in AECs, and its uptake was increased by granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor and IFN- treatments, which had no effect on CD80 and CD86 expression. We demonstrate the presence of other costimulatory molecules, including B7h and B7-H1, on AECs and the increased expression of B7-H1 on AECs after treatment with granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor and IFN-. Finally, we compared T cell proliferation after allostimulation with AECs and dendritic cells (DCs). The precursor frequency of peripheral blood T cells responding to AECs was 0.264% compared with 0.55% for DCs. DCs stimulated CD45RO⁺, CD45RA⁺, CCR7⁺ and CCR7^–CD4⁺, and CD8⁺ T cells, whereas AECs stimulated only CD45RO⁺, CD45RA^–, CCR7^–, CD4⁺, and CD8⁺ T cells. There was no difference in cytokine production, type of memory T cells stimulated (effector vs. long-term memory), or apoptosis by T cells cocultured with AECs and DCs. The localization of AECs exposed to the external environment may make them important in the regulation of local immune responses.

dendritic cells; immune responses; ragweed; lymphocytes; bronchoalveolar lavage