TY - JOUR T1 - Sputum neutrophil mediators in experimental rhinovirus infection in COPD JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J VL - 42 IS - Suppl 57 SP - P1880 AU - Patrick Mallia AU - Joseph Footitt AU - Maria-Belen Trujillo-Torralbo AU - Kazuhiro Ito AU - Ian Adcock AU - Peter Barnes AU - Onn Min Kon AU - Sebastian Johnston Y1 - 2013/09/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/42/Suppl_57/P1880.abstract N2 - Background. Acute exacerbations of COPD (AECOPD) are associated with neutrophilic airway inflammation. Inhibition of TNF-α was recently found to be ineffective in AECOPD. We used experimental rhinovirus (RV) infection to investigate neutrophil chemokines in AECOPD.Methods. 9 COPD subjects, 9 smokers (SMK) and 8 non-smokers (NS) were successfully infected with RV. Induced sputum (IS) was collected prior to infection and on days 3, 5, 9, 12, 15, 21 and 42 post-infection. Levels of IL-8, GM-CSF, IL-1β, TNF-α, GRO-α and MMP-9 were measured in IS supernatants using the Meso Scale Discovery (MSD®) platform.Results. MMP-9, IL-8, GM-CSF, IL-1β, and TNF-α in IS increased significantly from baseline following RV infection in the COPD group but not in the SMK or NS, GRO-α was not induced. Peak levels correlated with inflammatory cell counts, neutrophil numbers and neutrophil elastase (NE) in IS in the COPD subjects.View this table:Conclusions. IL-8, GM-CSF, IL-1β, and TNF-α, but not GRO-α, are all involved in neutrophilic inflammation in AECOPD. Inhibition of single cytokines is unlikely to be successful in AECOPD. High levels of the protease MMP-9 are induced so NE inhibition may also be unsuccessful. Therapeutic strategies that target multiple chemokines or multiple proteases are likely to be required in AECOPD. ER -