Sephadex induced bronchial hyperreactivity in the rat: hematology, histology, histochemistry and immunohistology of the lung.

24 hours after an i.v. injection of 2 mg Sephadex G 200 particles ovalbumin sensitized Sprague Dawley rats show an antigen specific bronchial hyperreactivity and an unspecific hyperreactivity against serotonin. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of Sephadex on blood parameters and lung pathology to find the morphological substrate of bronchial hyperreactivity in this animal model. In the blood neutrophilia (p < 0.01) but no eosinophilia was present. We conclude that a blood eosinophilia needs not to be necessarily correlated with hyperreactivity of the airways like claimed by other investigators for this animal model. Histologically we found that Sephadex particles are trapped in smaller-diameter arteries of the lung and lead to a granulomatous arteritis consisting mainly of ED1 positive and widely ED2 negative macrophages interspersed with eosinophils and neutrophils. Larger vessels not occluded by particles showed perivascular oedema with infiltration of eosinophils. We report here for the first time a significant hypertrophy of PAS positive goblet cells (p < 0.01) accompanied by a peribronchial infiltration with eosinophils (p < 0.01) and macrophages positive for ED1, ED2 and Ox-6 (p < 0.01) but not Ox-19 positive T-lymphocytes. The authors suggest that the peribronchial inflammation contributes importantly to the onset of bronchial hyperreactivity in this animal model and that the hypertrophy of goblet cells indicates the pathophysiological importance of peribronchial leukocytes.