Antibody-mediated erythrolysis and erythrophagocytosis by human monocytes, macrophages and activated macrophages. Evidence for distinction between involvement of high-affinity and low-affinity receptors for IgG by using different erythroid target cells.

Antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) and Fc receptor-mediated phagocytosis were determined with human monocytes, monocyte-derived macrophages and activated macrophages, using rabbit IgG-covered sheep red blood cells (EAs) and anti-D-treated human erythrocytes (EAhu) as target cells. Monocyte and macrophage-mediated ADCC were distinguished by different kinetics, monocytes lysing either target more rapidly than macrophages. Macrophage activation by recombinant IFN-gamma (rIFN-gamma) led to a marked increase in ADCC activity against EAhu. This manifested in increased lysis of optimally sensitized target cells, in a sustained lysis of target cells carrying low antibody densities, and as an enhanced resistance to lysis inhibition by competing fluid-phase inhibition by competing fluid-phase IgG. All these effects were less striking when EAs were the target cells. Phagocytosis of EAs by rIFN-gamma-treated cells was strongly suppressed, regardless of the amount of antibody on the target cells, and susceptibility to inhibition by fluid-phase IgG was slightly increased. By comparison, phagocytosis of EAhu was depressed to a lesser degree, and susceptibility to inhibition by fluid-phase IgG was reduced when macrophages were rIFN-gamma treated. These and other experiments suggested that the functional triggering of monocytes and macrophages by EAs involved, at least in part, low-affinity Fc receptors (FcR), whereas EAhu interacted with macrophages via high-affinity FcR. It is shown elsewhere that rIFN-gamma treatment of macrophages increases the expression of high-affinity FcR, but not low-affinity FcR (Jungi, Lerch & Brcic, 1987). Differences in the rIFN-gamma-induced functional alterations assessed with EAhu or with EAs are interpreted therefore as being a consequence of differential involvement of high-affinity FcR and of low-affinity FcR in mediating an effector function. For monitoring rIFN-gamma-induced alterations in the effector capacity EAs are more appropriate targets since up-regulation of high-affinity FcR has a smaller influence on the response to this type of target. Using metabolic inhibitors, ADCC could be dissociated from ingestion suggesting that ADCC is not a post-phagocytic event.