Increased HDC mRNA expression and decreased HMT mRNA expression may be playing some role in the hyperresponsiveness of patients with allergic rhinitis.

Objective  To determine the cellular expression of Fas, Fas ligand and interleukin‐1β converting enzyme (ICE) in prostatic cancer. Patients and methods  Specimens of prostate were obtained from 21 patients (mean age 66 years, sd 5) undergoing radical prostatectomy for prostatic cancer. Nine of the 21 patients had received endocrine therapy before surgery. Specimens were also obtained from 10 patients with benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) and during autopsy from 10 patients who had died from hormone‐unresponsive prostate cancer. Paraffin‐embedded sections were cut from the specimens and stained immunohistochemically to detect Fas, Fas ligand and ICE. Results  Fas was expressed in all 21 of the cancer specimens while Fas ligand was detected in none and ICE was expressed in 11. The difference between the expression of Fas and ICE was significant (P<0.001). ICE was expressed in nine of 12 patients who were untreated before surgery and in two of nine treated with endocrine therapy (P<0.05). Fas expression was detected in the specimens from all 10 patients with BPH and in all 10 autopsy specimens; the expression tended to be more marked than that in specimens from total prostatectomy (P<0.1). Conclusion  The expression of ICE was weaker than that of Fas in the total prostatectomy specimens, suggesting a possible interruption of the apoptotic signalling pathway. Prostates with BPH and hormone‐unresponsive cancer therefore showed no appreciable change in Fas expression when compared with total prostatectomy samples.

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The production of immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibody is largely dependent on the ratio between interleukin-4 (IL-4) (a T helper 2 (Th2)-type cytokine) and interferon-g (IFN-g) (a T helper 1 (Th1)-type cytokine). Interleukin-5 (IL-5) (also a Th2-type cytokine) is an important eosinophil differentiation factor and also costimulates B-cell growth and differentiation. The present study was designed to evaluate and compare the expression of IFN-g, IL-4 and IL-5 mRNA in the nasal mucosal membrane of sensitized Brown-Norway (BN) rats. Fourteen BN rats were divided into two groups: non-sensitized (control) and sensitized. The sensitized group was injected with ovalbumin (OA) intraperitoneally on three consecutive days. Twenty-one days later, rats were exposed to 1% OA aerosol. Twenty-four hours after exposure to aerosol, nasal mucosa was extracted from both groups and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was performed. The densities of the bands of IL-4, IL-5 and IFN-g mRNA were expressed as percentages against b-actin mRNA. Our results showed that the mean values for IL-4 and IL-5 mRNA were increased significantly in sensitized rats compared with control rats. In contrast, the mean value for IFN-g mRNA was significantly lower in sensitized rats compared with those of the control group. Our data therefore suggest that sensitization of rat nasal mucous membranes results in the predominant expression of Th2-type cytokines.

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