Production of Interleukin-10 by Granulocyte Colony-Stimulating Factor–Mobilized Blood Products: A Mechanism for Monocyte-Mediated Suppression of T-Cell Proliferation

Previous reports showed that granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF)-mobilized peripheral blood mononuclear cells (G-PBMC) are hyporesponsive to alloantigen compared with control PBMC. In the current study, neutralizing antibodies to interleukin-10 (IL-10) increased the proliferative response of G-PBMC to alloantigen by 50.14% (± 12.79%; n = 8), whereas the proliferative response of control PBMC was not affected. The inhibition of OKT3-stimulated CD4 cell proliferation by G-PBMC–derived CD14+ cells could also be abrogated by the addition of IL-10 neutralizing antibodies. Further, IL-10 levels correlated with the number of CD14 cells in these cultures. Constitutive IL-10 mRNA levels detected by quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) were 10-fold higher in G-PBMC compared with control PBMC. This translated into significantly higher IL-10 levels after 24-hour lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation of G-PBMC compared with control PBMC ( P = .036). IL-10 mRNA levels were also fivefold higher in isolated G-PBMC-derived CD14 cells compared with control CD14 cells. This corresponded to increased constitutive production of IL-10 by isolated G-PBMC–derived CD14 cells compared with control CD14 cells (357.2 ± 104.5 v 51.7 ± 30.5, P = .051). In conclusion, these data suggest that monocytes contained within G-PBMC, which, in comparison to marrow, are increased in absolute number and relative proportion to T cells, may suppress T-cell responsiveness by secretion of IL-10.