Intraperitoneal influx of neutrophils in response to IL-33 is mast cell–dependent

IL-33 is a recently discovered cytokine involved in induction of Th2 responses and functions as an alarmin. Despite numerous recent studies targeting IL-33, its role in vivo is incompletely understood. Here we investigated inflammatory responses to intraperitoneal IL-33 injections in wild-type and mast cell–deficient mice. We found that wild-type mice, but not mast cell–deficient Wsh/Wsh mice, respond to IL-33 treatment with neutrophil infiltration to the peritoneum, whereas other investigated cell types remained unchanged. In Wsh/Wsh mice, the IL-33–induced innate neutrophil response could be rescued by local reconstitution with wild-type but not with T1/ST2−/− mast cells, demonstrating a mast cell–dependent mechanism. Furthermore, we found this mechanism to be partially dependent on mast cell–derived TNF, as we observed reduced neutrophil infiltration in Wsh/Wsh mice reconstituted with TNF−/− bone marrow–derived mast cells compared with those reconstituted with wild-type bone marrow–derived mast cells. In agreement with our in vivo findings, we demonstrate that humanneutrophils migrate toward the supernatant of IL-33–treated human mast cells. Taken together, our findings reveal that IL-33 activates mast cells in vivo to recruit neutrophils, a mechanism dependent on IL-33R expression on peritoneal mast cells. Mast cells activated in vivo by IL-33 probably play an important role in inflammatory reactions.