Mononuclear cells from patients with the hyper-IgE syndrome produce little IgE when they are stimulated with recombinant human interleukin-4

To investigate whether B cells from patients with the hyper-IgE syndrome are more sensitive to the effects of interleukin-4 in vitro than B cells of normal or atopic individuals, we stimulated blood mononuclear cells (MNC) with varying doses of recombinant human interleukin 4 (rhIL-4) and measured supernatant IgE concentrations after 18 days of culture. Geometric mean spontaneous IgE synthesis after 18 days of culture without rhIL-4 was low (