Comparison of the pulmonary surfactant content in alveolar macrophages of newborn, young, and adult rats.

The phospholipid composition of the 150-g pellet containing macrophages from neonatal lung lavages resembles that of surfactant. To study whether this composition reflects the surfactant content of the macrophage, we isolated the alveolar phospholipids and macrophages from the lavage fluids of fetal, newborn, young, and adult Wistar rats. The alveolar surfactant phospholipids increased from fetal levels of 2.8 nmol/mg dry lung weight (DLW) to 39 nmol/mg DLW at day 1, decreased sharply within the first week, and stabilized at a level of 2-4 nmol/mg DLW after day 15. The number of alveolar macrophages increased significantly during the first postnatal day from approximately 750 to more than 5000 (per mg DLW), decreased during the next 4 days, and varied strongly at older ages. We estimated the surfactant content in the macrophages semiquantitatively by polarization microscopy. Birefringence augmented significantly during the first 1.5 days after birth and decreased after that concurrently with the amount of alveolar surfactant. However, only cells without birefringent inclusions sedimented at 150g, whereas the phospholipid composition of the pellets falsely suggested that large amounts of intracellular surfactant were present in its cells. At least two populations of macrophages (surfactant-rich and surfactant-poor) are present in the growing animal. We suggest that differences in function of these various types of macrophages also might depend on surfactant congestion.