Suppression by radioactive strontium of the spontaneous cytotoxicity expressed by adherent, predominantly phagocytic cells from various mouse tissues.

Adherent, predominantly phagocytic effector cells which have previously been shown to occur in a large number of tissues of mice and rats have the spontaneous capacity to kill a variety of syngeneic, allogeneic and xenogeneic target cells in vitro. The present work shows that 89Sr treatment of mice suppressed this spontaneous cytotoxicity, thus indicating that the effector cells pass a substantial part of their life in the bone marrow. In contrast, the capacity to mobilize mononuclear phagocytes and to enhance cytotoxicity in response to an appropriate stimulus were not consistently impaired.