Maturation of the rabbit alveolar macrophage during animal development. III. Phagocytic and bactericidal functions.

Phagocytic and bactericidal function of rabbit alveolar macrophages (AMs) lavaged from animals during the course of postnatal maturation was studied. Staphylococcus aureus and a temperature-sensitive mutant of Escherichia coli, which could not replicate at 37 degrees during the functional assays, were employed as test bacteria. Assays of the phagocytic capacity of AMs from rabbits of various age groups revealed no significant differences either in the percentage of AMs which took up bacteria (79-90%) or in the number of bacteria taken up per AM (Table 1). In contrast, bactericidal activity of AMs was found to increase with increasing animal age. No bactericidal activity was detected in AMs from newborn animals (Figs. 1 and 2), whereas AMs from 7-day-old animals exhibited at least a bacteristatic activity against S. aureus (Fig. 1) and AMs from 28-day-old rabbits showed marked bactericidal activity, essentially the same as that of AMs from adult rabbits. Adult AMs killed 75% of the S. aureus and 60% of the E. coli within 120 min (Figs. 1 and 2).