A comparative study of the neutrophil stimulatory activity in vitro and pro-inflammatory properties in vivo of 72 amino acid and 77 amino acid IL-8.

IL-8, a potent neutrophil-activating protein, can be produced by many cell types including monocytes, lymphocytes, fibroblasts, neutrophils, and endothelial cells. Depending on the cell source, the N-terminal amino acid sequence of IL-8 displays heterogeneity that has been shown to confer differences in its neutrophil stimulatory activity in vitro. Despite these observations the relative potency of different IL-8 molecules in vivo is unknown. To address this question we have investigated the biologic activity of the two predominant forms of IL-8, the 72 and the 77 amino acid proteins, in vitro and in vivo. In vitro, human rIL-8(72) and human rIL-8(77) dose dependently induced adherence of rabbit peritoneal neutrophils and human neutrophils to laminin-coated plates and elevated cytoplasmic levels of Ca2+ ([Ca2+]i) in fura-2 loaded neutrophils. In these in vitro assays human rIL-8(72) was more potent than human rIL-8(77) while inducing comparable responses to human rC5a. With respect to enhancing [Ca2+]i, neutrophils desensitized to human rIL-8(72) failed to respond to human rIL-8(77). However, neutrophils fully desensitized to human rIL-8(77) could exhibit a partial response to human rIL-8(72). Further, human rIL-8(72) was approximately 10-fold more effective than human rIL-8(77) in displacing human [125I]rIL-8(72) from rabbit peritoneal neutrophils in a receptor-binding assay. In vivo, intradermally administered human rIL-8(72) and human rIL-8(77) induced 111In-neutrophil accumulation and edema formation in rabbit skin. In contrast to the in vitro studies, the two forms of IL-8 gave identical responses in vivo although they were less potent than human rC5a. Our results demonstrate that, in vitro, human rIL-8(72) is more potent than human rIL-8(77) in stimulating neutrophils. It may be that IL-8)72) has a greater affinity and/or efficacy for the neutrophil IL-8 cell-surface receptors. One possibility for the observation that both forms of IL-8 are equipotent in inducing inflammatory responses in vivo is that the extended form is proteolytically cleaved to the more biologically active IL-8(72).