Lumisphere-induced phagocytosis and chemiluminescence of human polymorphonuclear leukocytes of normal adults and the patients with various respiratory diseases.

Lumisphere, luminol-conjugated microspheres, proved to be useful for measuring simultaneously phagocytic function and chemiluminescence (CL) of human blood leukocytes. Phagocytic index (PI) which was calculated by summation of PMNs phagocytized more than 6 Lumisphere particles per 100 PMNs did not correlate well with any of CL responses to phorbol myristate acetate (CL-PMA), opsonized zymosan (CL-OZ), and Lumisphere by itself (CL-Lumi) . Since phagocytosis is modulated by interaction of cell surface receptors such as FcR, C3bR and fibronectin with certain ligands, the present findings suggested no direct correlation or association of phagocytosis with oxygen active metabilisms. Correlation coefficients of CL-Lumi of healthy adults with CL-PMA and CL-OZ was 0.630 and 0.845, respectively. In contrast, the correlation coefficients of the patients were very low, suggesting that each of CL-PMA, CL-OZ, and CL-Lumi reflected the different receptor-mediated oxygen metabilisms. The comparison of these CL responses and phagocytosis gives an insight into monitoring various disease activities associated with phagocytic functions and receptor mediated functions of PMNs.