The Macrophage in Sarcoidosis

In biopsies from skin and lymph node lesions, Carr and Norris (1977) described numerous electron-dense inclusions ranging from 50 nm to 250 nm in minimum diameter and elongated up to 2 p,m in length. The core of these inclusions is composed of granules about 4 nm in diameter arranged to form lines with an approximate periodicity of 8 nm. 

Lucigenin-enhanced chemiluminescence of yeast cell wall-stimulated alveolar macrophages gained by brochoalveolar lavage from patients suffering from sarcoidosis was significantly increased as compared with patients with other pulmonary disease or healthy volunteers (Winsel et al. 1987). 

Spontaneous release of IL-10 from alveolar macrophages gained by bronchoalveolar lavage and cultured for 24 h increased from 10 4 pg/ml/106 cells in normal subjects to 101137 pg/ml/106 cells (P 0.0001) in patients with active sarcoidosis (Marques et al. 1997). After stimulation with 1.0 p.g lipopolysaccharide/ml the figures were 200142 pg/ml/106 cells and 643 1 300 pg/ml/106 cells, respectively. 

As the chnical course of pulmonary sarcoidosis has been correlated with patients individual capacities for spontaneous tumour necrosis factor production by alveolar macrophages (Muller-Quernheim et al. 1992, Zheng et al. 1995), modulation of TNF in a more specific way than corticoids 

Osteopontin, a negatively charged, glycosylated sialoprotein, absent in normal lung or granulation tissue and all isotype controls, was extensively expressed in the macrophages in biopsies from patients with pulmonary sarcoidosis (Chupp et al. 1996). 

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