Effect of β-Agonists on Production of Cytokines by Activated T Cells Obtained from Asthmatic Patients and Normal Subjects

Intracellular levels of cAMP were found to regulate T cell activity. We examined whether β2-agonists altered cytokine production and cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) accumulation in concanavalin A (ConA)-activated peripheral T cells from asthmatic patients. Procaterol and isoproterenol weakly decreased the ConA-elicited interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-5 secretion; however, the inhibitory effect of procaterol on the ConA-induced IL-2 secretion was inferior to that of isoproterenol in normal controls and was little in asthmatics. The intracellular accumulation of cAMP by procaterol was not altered compared with that by isoproterenol. Results suggest that there is a qualitative difference between procaterol- and isoproterenol-induced cAMP accumulation in T cells.