The kinetics of mononuclear phagocytes in normal calves given Corynebacterium parvum.

Two groups of calves, three in each group, were used to determine the kinetics of mononuclear phagocytes in normal calves and in calves given Corynebacterium parvum intravenously, using tritiated thymidine as an in vivo deoxyribonucleic acid label. In normal calves, the mean production time of labelled monocytes in the bone marrow was 36.4 +/- 2.04 hours. The turnover rate of labelled monocytes from the bone marrow into the peripheral blood was 5.4 +/- 0.3% per hour and the disappearance rate of labelled monocytes from the circulation was 0.9 +/- 0.3%. The half lives of labelled blood monocytes were 22.5 hours for cells with 16-30 grains and 19.5 hours for cells with 31-50 grains. Alveolar macrophages were derived from peripheral blood monocytes. In calves given C. parvum, the production time, turnover rate and half lives of labelled monocytes did not differ significantly (p greater than 0.05) from the values in normal calves.