The chemotactic factors induced movement of calcium and sodium across rabbit neutrophil membranes: effect of densensitization to cytochalasin B.

The preincubation of rabbit neutrophils with the chemotactic factor F-Met-Leu-Phe and the subsequent addition of cytochalasin B has previously been shown to induce a time, concentration and calcium dependent loss of secretory responsiveness in neutrophils. This has been termed desensitization. The results reported here first confirm that lysosomal enzyme release from neutrophils will still occur in the absence of extracellular calcium. In addition, a time dependent decrease in the magnitude of the cytochalasin B induced influxes of 45Ca and 22Na was found upon preincubation with F-Met-Leu-Phe. In the presence of extracellular Ca2+, this decrease in ionic responsiveness reaches a maximum by five minutes preincubation with F-Met-Leu-Phe. In the absence of added extracellular Ca2+ an initial and rapid (less than 1 minute) loss of ionic responsiveness is followed by partial recovery as the length of the preincubation with the chemotactic factor is increased from one to five minutes. These changes in ionic responses correspond exactly to the changes in secretory behavior of the neutrophils. Desensitization can thus be explained on the same ionic basis as that underlying the secretory response of the neutrophils. In addition, these results provide information about the sequence of events involved in the cytochalasin B and chemotactic factor induced release of lysosomal enzymes in neutrophils.