BACKGROUND Alveolar macrophages are sentinels of the airways that must exhibit immune restraint to innocuous antigens but elicit a robust inflammatory response to pathogenic threats. How distinction between these dichotomous functions is controlled is poorly defined.Neutrophils are the first responders to infection, and we hypothesised that they may free alveolar macrophages from their hyporesp...

Pulmonary fibrosis is the major toxic effect of bleomycin chemotherapy; however, the molecular mechanisms of the pathological process are unknown. Since alveolar macrophages produce toxic oxygen metabolites and these can damage lung cells, the effect of bleomycin on superoxide anion production was investigated in subpopulations of pig alveolar macrophages. Cells were lavaged from the lung and s...

Dr. Martin is the recipient of Research Career Development Award K04-AI-70335 from the National Institutes of Health. Received for publication 18 April 1977 and in revised form 24 June 1977. and lymphocytes from individual patients was also positively correlated (r = 0.889, P < 0.001 for nonsmokers and r = 0.942, P < 0.001 for smokers). These results indicate that the capacity for aryl hydrocar...

BACKGROUND The alveolar macrophage is believed to be important in the defence of the lung and possibly in the pathogenesis of lung disease. Cell counts in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid have suggested that smokers have an increased number of alveolar macrophages but have not enabled the number to be related to a measure of lung structure. METHODS The number of alveolar macrophages was counted i...

In this paper many of the principal struc­ture of the Moral Lung were studied with the help of Electron Microscopy. Detailed descrip­tion was given of Granular Pneumocytes, Membranous Pneumocytes, Macrophages, and Alveolar Capillaries. A discussion followed on the form and function of Granular Pneumo­cytes.  Acknowledgements  I am grateful to the Reza Shah Pahlavi Foundation for its generou...

Porcine alveolar macrophages were found to be highly susceptible to the cytolytic effects of a toxin (Shiga toxin [Stx]) produced by certain strains of Escherichia coli and sometimes associated with clinical disease in pigs and other animals. In comparison with the cells that are most commonly used for Stx detection and titration in vitro (namely, Vero cells), porcine alveolar macrophages appea...

abstract background: cholesterol cleft granulomas with clusters of giant cells were noted to be a common feature of non-specific interstitial pneumonia (nsip). objective: this study aimed to define the cell populations involved in the granulomas. methods: the granulomas of 16 patients with cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis (five cases with the histological features ofnsip, five with those ofuip ...

Surfactant protein D (SP-D) is a molecule of the innate immune system that recognizes the patterns of surface carbohydrate on pathogens and targets them for phagocytosis and killing. SP-D-deficient mice show an increased number of macrophages in the alveolar space, excess surfactant phospholipid, overproduction of reactive oxygen species, and the development of emphysema. We report here that SP...

This investigation attempted to determine whether the primary source of alveolar macrophages is pulmonary or hematopoietic. We have utilized an antigenic marker to identify cells of hematopoietic origin. Mouse chimeras were produced by irradiating C57B6/AF(1) mice (900 R) and then injecting them intravenously with B10D2/AF(1) bone marrow. The donor animal has an antigenic specificity on the H-2...

Each ovarian cycle, the mammary gland epithelium rotates through a sequence of hormonally regulated cell proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis. These studies investigate the role of macrophages in this cellular turnover. Macrophage populations and their spatial distribution were found to fluctuate across the cycle. The number of macrophages was highest at diestrus, and the greatest numbe...