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Blood, 1 February 2005, Vol. 105, No. 3, pp. 1016-1020. Prepublished online as a Blood First Edition Paper on September 30, 2004; DOI 10.1182/blood-2004-07-2811. This Article Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 2004-07-2811v1 105/3/1016    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Rights and Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via CrossRef Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Kataoka, T. R Articles by Nakano, T. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Kataoka, T. R Articles by Nakano, T. Social Bookmarking                   What's this?  Previous Article  |  Next Article  Submitted July 22, 2004 Accepted September 24, 2004 Involvement of connective tissue type mast cells in Th1 immune responses via Stat4 expression Tatsuki R Kataoka*, Nobuyasu Komazawa, Eiichi Morii, Keisuke Oboki, and Toru Nakano Department of Pathology, Medical School/Graduate School of Frontier Bioscience, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan; Department of Pathology, Osaka Medical Center for Cancer and Cardiovascular Diseases, Osaka, Japan Department Social and Environmental Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan Department of Pathology, Medical School/Graduate School of Frontier Bioscience, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan Department of Pathology, Medical School/Graduate School of Frontier Bioscience, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan; Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Research Institute for Microbial Disease, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan * Corresponding author; email: trkata{at}patho.med.osaka-u.ac.jp. Mast cells are sentinels of immune systems and, like other immuno-competent cells, they are produced by hematopoietic stem cells. We analyzed the expression of signal transducer and activator of transcription (Stat) 4, and investigated their roles in mast cells. Murine mast cells are usually divided into two distinct populations by their distribution and contents of granules; mucosal mast cells (MMCs) and connective tissue type mast cells (CTMCs). Stat4 protein was detected in CTMCs but not in MMCs. The absence of Stat4 expression in cultured mast cells was due to the presence of Stat6. In T helper (Th) cells, Stat4 plays an important role in Th1 shift by inducing a set of genes, such as interferon (IFN)- and interleukin-18 receptor subunit (IL-18R). As in Th1 shift, we found that Stat4 trans-activated these genes in the Stat4 expressing cultured mast cells, namely, microphthalmia transcription factor (MITF)-deficient cultured MMCs, Stat6-deficient cultured MMCs, and cultured CTMCs. Stat4 also enhanced expression of nitric oxide synthase 2 (NOS2) in CTMCs, which brought about increased levels of NO-dependent cytotoxic activity. These data indicate that expression of Stat4 in CTMCs plays an important role on Th1 immune responses. CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this? This article has been cited by other articles: F. H. Hsieh, P. Sharma, A. Gibbons, T. Goggans, S. C. Erzurum, and S. J. Haque Human airway epithelial cell determinants of survival and functional phenotype for primary human mast cells PNAS, October 4, 2005; 102(40): 14380 - 14385. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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