Phagocytosis of opsonized oil droplets by neutrophils. Adaptation to a microtiter plate format.

A previously described assay for neutrophil phagocytosis of oil droplets labeled with the lipophilic red dye, oil red O, has been adapted to a microtiter plate format. Oil laden neutrophils are fixed to the plate with glutaraldehyde, washed free of uningested oil, and evaluated for degree of oil red O uptake by direct determination of light absorption at 540 nm in a microtiter plate reader. Advantages of the modified procedure include the ability to determine rates of phagocytosis (multiple determinations) under diverse conditions, simultaneously and with greater facility. Multiple centrifugation steps are eliminated and the requirement for extraction of oil red O from each cell pellet prior to quantitation becomes optional. The system has been evaluated for oil droplets emulsified with lipopolysaccharide alone or with lipopolysaccharide together with bovine serum albumin. For droplets emulsified with lipopolysaccharide alone, efficient opsonization was accomplished with fresh serum alone, through heat labile, presumably complement-dependent, pathways. For droplets emulsified with lipopolysaccharide and bovine serum albumin, specific antiserum to bovine serum albumin was a considerably more efficient opsonin than non-immune fresh serum. A third system is described in which tetanus toxoid was introduced into oil droplets that had been previously emulsified with lipopolysaccharide. Inclusion of toxoid antigens rendered the oil droplets susceptible to opsonization with tetanus immune globulin, making the assay system possibly applicable to evaluation of immunoglobulin function in humans.