Interleukin-8 Receptor 2 (IL-8R2)-Deficient Mice Are More Resistant to Pulmonary Coccidioidomycosis than Control Mice

Abstract

The pathology of human coccidioidomycosis is granulomatous inflammation with many neutrophils surrounding ruptured spherules, but the chemotactic pathways that draw neutrophils into the infected tissues are not known. We previously showed that formalin-killed spherules (FKS) stimulate mouse macrophages to secret macrophage inflammatory protein 2 (MIP-2), which suggested that CXC ELR+ chemokines might be involved in neutrophil recruitment in vivo . To test that hypothesis, we intranasally infected interleukin-8R2 (IL-8R2) ( Cxcr2 )-deficient mice on a BALB/c background with Coccidioides immitis RS.