The motile response of alveolar macrophages. An experimental study using single-cell and cell population approaches.

In this report, we studied the applicability of a random walk model of individual cell motility in predicting the motile behavior of alveolar macrophage populations under agarose. The migration of a population of cells in the absence of a chemotactic or chemokinetic gradient can be characterized by the random motility coefficient, mu, which is analogous to a particle diffusion coefficient. Random walk theory relates this latter coefficient to particle speed and collision time (equivalent to the time between changes in particle direction). By analogy, according to a similar random walk theory for cell migration, mu for a cell population is a function of the speed and persistence time (with direction changes governed by cell behavioral processes rather than by collisions) of individual cells. To test the model, normal guinea pig alveolar macrophages were incubated in the presence or absence of uniform concentrations of the chemotactic tripeptide formyl-norleucyl leucyl phenylalanine (FNLLP) to elicit different levels of motile activity. Mu was calculated from cell population density profiles obtained by fixing and staining cultures after 2, 3, or 4 days. In parallel experiments, individual cell speeds and persistence times were measured from 1-h, time-lapse video microscopy recordings. The value of mu calculated from single-cell measurements was in good agreement with that from population studies for stimulated random migration (at 10(-7) to 10(-11) M FNLLP), but not in the absence of stimulant. Overall, these results support the applicability of the random walk model of individual cell migration to randomly migrating alveolar macrophage populations.