Opsonic activity of plasma fibronectin for Staphylococcus aureus by human alveolar macrophages: inefficacy of trypsin-sensitive staphylococcal fibronectin receptor.

The binding of 125I-fibronectin (FN) to some bacteria and the phagocytic activity of human alveolar macrophages (AM) by a culture method using 3H-labelled bacteria were examined. FN-binding of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) was higher than that of gram-negative rods and was reduced markedly by trypsin-treatment. FN enhanced the uptake of S. aureus by AM in dose dependent manner. To determine whether FN-binding to S. aureus mediates the promotion of staphylococcal phagocytosis, we compared the uptake of non-treated S. aureus with that of trypsin-treated bacteria by AM. No significant difference was found between the uptake of these bacteria and no effect of FN-binding to S. aureus on the phagocytic activity. It is concluded that FN plays an essential role as a non-immune opsonin for S. aureus in the human lung which is found to be abundant in FN, and that FN-binding to S. aureus is probably not related to this effect.