Heterogeneity of macrophages in response to lymphokines and other signals.

Macrophages which are intimately involved in acute and chronic inflammatory reactions are functionally heterogeneous not only with regard to the expression of constitutive functions but also in their response to lymphokine signals. The biological basis of this heterogeneity is poorly understood. Whether we are dealing with true subpopulations or with intermediately stable phenotypes has not been resolved. To study these questions we adopted a bone marrow liquid culture system in which bone marrow cells--in the presence of a colony-stimulating factor--proliferate and differentiate into macrophages. This culture system was taken here as a model to study the expression of various functions by macrophages in the course of maturation. Several tests were performed daily and in parallel from the same batch of cells. It was found that certain functions were expressed early and were also characteristic for mature macrophages such as Fc receptors, phagocytosis of latex beads and unspecific esterase. Other functions appeared and disappeared in an ordered sequence, such as the response to macrophage migration inhibitory factor and chemotactic factor as well as the production of interferon and plasminogen activator. The time course of functional expression was strongly dependent on proliferation of precursor cells as well as on proliferation of differentiated macrophages. It is concluded that the transient phenotypic expression of functions during differentiation is the basis for the functional heterogeneity of macrophages.