Isolation of guinea pig macrophages bearing surface C4 by fluorescence-activated cell sorting: correlation between surface C4 antigen and C4 protein secretion.

Studies of complement (C) secretion by single cells indicate that only a subset of a guinea pig macrophage population is capable of secreting the second (C2) and fourth (C4) components of C. Moreover, cell-surface bound C4 antigen is also found on a proportion of guinea pig peritoneal macrophages. The availability of methods for the isolation of macrophages bearing surface membrane C4 antigen and for the detection of the secretion of C by single cells made it possible to ascertain the relationship between these two subsets. Approximately 25% of the freshly isolated peritoneal macrophages were surface C4 antigen positive. When incubated in conditioned medium containing C4 or incubated in small volumes to increase the concentration of fluid phase C4, the proportion of macrophages bearing surface C4 increased to approximately 80%. The surface C4 antigen was adsorbed from the medium and was predominantly native C4. The proportion of peritoneal macrophages secreting functionally active C4 or C2 was approximately 45% as measured by a hemolytic plaque assay technique. The proportion of C4-secreting cells decreased to 5% after incubation in conditioned medium containing preformed C4, whereas the proportion of C2-producing macrophages was unchanged, i.e., it remained at about 45%. The removal of secreted C4 with F(ab')2 anti-C4 or effectively decreasing C4 concentration by increasing the volume of the culture medium abrogated the decrease in the proportion of C4-secreting cells. Conditioned medium derived from cells genetically deficient in C4 had no effect on the proportion of C4- or C2-producing macrophages. The macrophage population bearing surface membrane C4, isolated by fluorescence-activated cell sorting, contained more than 90% of the C4-producing cells. Cells producing C2 were distributed equally in both subpopulations. Maintenance of the surface C4-positive, C4-producing cells in culture for 12 hr resulted in a decrease in the proportion of C4-secreting cells. Conversely, isolated macrophages initially surface C4 negative and not producing C4, developed the capacity to produce C4 in culture. C4 production in the isolated surface C4-negative population was inhibited by incubation in medium containing preformed C4. These results suggest the presence of a negative feedback effect on C4 secretion that is mediated by extracellular C4.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)