OBJECTIVE Many diseases, including atherosclerosis, involve chronic inflammation. The master transcription factor for inflammation is NF-κB. Inflammatory sites have a low extracellular pH. Our objective was to demonstrate the effect of pH on NF-κB activation and cytokine secretion. METHODS Mouse J774 macrophages or human THP-1 or monocyte-derived macrophages were incubated at pH 7.0-7.4 and i...

Accumulation of lipid-laden foam cells of monocyte origin plays an important role in atherogenesis. Therefore, for determination of the mechanism of accelerated atherogenesis in Werner's syndrome, studies were carried out on the metabolism of acetylated low density lipoprotein (LDL) by monocyte-derived macrophages from patients with this syndrome. These macrophages showed abnormally high activi...

Although both monocytes and macrophages possess essential requirements for HIV-1 entry, peripheral blood monocytes are infrequently infected with HIV-1 in vivo and in vitro. In contrast, tissue macrophages and monocyte-derived macrophages in vitro are highly susceptible to infection with HIV-1 R5 tropic strains. We investigated intracellular anti-HIV-1 factors that contribute to differential su...

Monocytes/macrophages are phagocytic innate immune cells playing a pivotal role in tissue homeostasis, inflammation, and antitumor immunity microenvironment-dependent manner. By expressing pattern recognition scavenger receptors on their surface, macrophages selectively take up pathogens, cellular debris, often—undesirably—drug delivery systems. On the other hand, propensity of to internalize p...

Certain human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) isolates are able to productively infect nondividing cells of the monocyte/macrophage lineage. We have used a molecular genetic approach to construct two different HIV-1 integrase mutants that were studied in the context of an infectious, macrophage-tropic HIV-1 molecular clone. One mutant, HIV-1 delta D(35)E, containing a 37-residue deletion ...

Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) is a ubiquitous adrenal hormone with immunomodulatory effects such as inhibition of the production of monokines. Whether DHEA itself or the downstream steroids are the immunomodulatory effector hormones in target cells is not known. In this study, we investigated the conversion of DHEA to downstream steroid hormones in target macrophages. Within 1 day of culture wi...

BACKGROUND Monocyte-derived macrophages contribute to atherosclerotic plaque formation. Therefore, manipulating macrophage function could have significant therapeutic value. The objective of this study was to determine transduction efficiency of two HIV-based lentiviral vector configurations as delivery systems for the transduction of primary human blood monocyte-derived macrophages. RESULTS ...

IC21 macrophages, a permanent culture of a line of cells derived from a single colony of mouse peritoneal macrophages transformed with simian virus 40, demonstrate most of the characteristics of lipoprotein metabolism that have been described for primary cultures of rodent or canine peritoneal macrophages. IC21 macrophages have low but demonstrable low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor activit...

Peripheral blood monocytes of several species can be divided into different subpopulations with distinct phenotypic and functional properties. Herein, we aim at reviewing published work regarding the heterogeneity of the recently characterized bovine monocyte subsets. As the heterogeneity of human blood monocytes was widely studied and reviewed, this work focuses on comparing bovine monocyte su...

Harvesting cultivated macrophages for tissue engineering purposes by enzymatic digestion of cell adhesion molecules can potentially result in unintended activation, altered function, or behavior of these cells. Thermo-responsive polymer is a promising tool that allows for gentle macrophage detachment without artificial activation prior to subculture within engineered tissue constructs. We there...