Ectopic expression of IL-5 identifies an additional CD4⁺ T cell mechanism of airway eosinophil recruitment

CD4⁺ T cells have a critical role in the development of allergic pulmonary inflammation, including the recruitment of eosinophils to the air-way lumen and interstitium. The expression of interleukin (IL)-5 by CD4⁺ cells has, in particular, often been lionized as the central link between allergic inflammation and the concomitant expansion or recruitment of eosinophils. The mechanism(s) by which CD4⁺ T cells mediates eosinophil recruitment was assessed with gene knockout mice deficient for T cells or T cell subtypes and a unique IL-5 transgenic mouse (line NJ. 1726) that constitutively overexpresses this cytokine in the lung epithelium. Pulmonary IL-5 expression is significantly attenuated in T cell- and CD4⁺ but not CD8⁺ cell-deficient animals, suggesting an obvious explanation for the lack of eosinophils in the lungs of T cell-deficient and CD4(-/-) mice. However, although the constitutive expression of IL-5 in the lung epithelium of NJ.1726 mice elicited an eosinophilia in the airway lumen of both naive and ovalbu-rain-treated mice, in the absence of CD4⁺ cells, allergen-mediated eosinophil recruitment to the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid was abolished. Moreover, intranasal instillation of the potent eosinophil-specific chemokine eotaxin-2 was incapable of eliciting eosinophil recruitment in naive and ovalbumin-treated NJ.1726 CD4(-/-) mice, suggesting that eosin-ophil trafficking during allergic inflammatory responses is a consequence of a CD4⁺ cell-mediated event(s) in addition to IL-5 expression and the establishment of a pulmonary chemokine gradient.