Basophils descriptions

Our understanding of anaphylaxis has advanced substantially since the original description of this phenomenon in the scientific literature over 100 years ago. There is now little reasonable doubt that the IgE-dependent activation of mast cells and basophils is the key event underlying most examples of allergen-induced anaphylaxis in humans [3-5]. IgE binds to the high-affinity IgE receptor, FcsRI, expressed on the... 

HB, Leskowitz S, Karnovsky MJ Cutaneous basophil hypersensitivity. II. A light and electron microscopic description. J Exp Med 1970 132 558-582. 

The presence of a nucleolus in most nuclei is so obvious that it is not surprising that its description appeared in the literature long ago as early as 1781 Fontana described nucleoli. The word nucleolus means little nucleus and, to be sure, on stained material nucleoli appear in the nucleoplasm as basophilic round or ovoid masses. With the aid of the light microscope and refined staining techniques, Cajal demonstrated that the nucleolus of the intestinal cell of the larvae of Diptera has a filamentous structure. Thirty years later, it was concluded from observations of a variety of tissues stained by silver impregnation or examined with the phase contrast microscope that nucleoli have a dual composition that includes a filamentous structure, or nucleolonema, and a homogenous inconsistent part, or the pars amorpha. ... 

In the kidney the enzyme wa.s demonstrated in the proximal convoluted tubule, concentrated at the basal pole of the cells and in portions of the renal glomerulus. Deane (1944) reported that the basophilic bodies in the hepatic cells of white mice are usually grouped about the nucleus and has equated these bodies with the microsomal fraction of differential centrifugation studies. Since most investigators have shown that G-6-Pase is associated with the microsomal fraction of liver cells (Table III), the histochemical distribution of the enzyme, as reported by Chiquoine, is consistent with Deane s description of the distribution of the microsome material. 

The current descriptions of sensitivity and maximal response are best applied to secretion of histamine. However, a more complete understanding will require further information about the same parameters in the context of lipid and cytokine release. Both of these mediators are critical determinants of the allergic inflammatory response, so that understanding the extent to which new therapeutics need to suppress basophil and mast cell responsiveness will be dependent on new information regarding the relative roles of each of the secreted mediators. Recent studies have indicated that basophil sensitivity is very similar when viewed from the secretion of each of three classes of mediators. This means that if cell surface antigen-specific IgE is present at a density sufficient to initiate only 50% of the maximum histamine release, approximately 50% of the maximal secretion of IL-4 and LTC4 will also be obtained. It remains to be determined whether the equivalent suppression of secretion for each of the three classes of mediators will lead to equivalent reductions for the functional endpoints of the three different mediator classes. 

III. FceRI Expression on Basophils and Mast Cells A. Descriptives... 

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