Antimicrobial activities of dialysate-elicited and resident human peritoneal macrophages.

Recent studies of the antimicrobial capacity of peritoneal macrophages (PM phi) isolated from patients undergoing chronic peritoneal dialysis have raised the question of whether these cells might be analogous to stimulated or activated murine PM phi. To explore this possibility, we compared PM phi from these patients (dialysate-elicited PM phi) with PM phi obtained from women undergoing laparoscopy (resident PM phi) in several in vitro assays of phagocyte function. Although bacterial phagocytosis by cells from both groups of donors was similar, significant differences were found in their chemiluminescence responses to opsonized zymosan. Although the mean peak luminol-enhanced chemiluminescence response of dialysate-elicited PM phi was 4.7 X 10(5) cpm, that of resident PM phi was only 1.3 X 10(5) cpm (P less than 0.05). In a lucigenin-enhanced chemiluminescence assay, dialysate-elicited PM phi again generated significantly greater chemiluminescence than did resident PM phi, suggesting that dialysate-elicited PM phi have a relatively increased capacity for O2- production. Using a fluorochrome microassay to assess the intracellular candidicidal activities of these cells, we found that dialysate-elicited PM phi killed 17% of cell-associated blastospores compared with only 1.5% killing by resident PM phi (P less than 0.05). These investigations led us to conclude that results of studies of the functional activity of dialysate-elicited PM phi cannot necessarily be extrapolated to resident PM phi and that dialysate-elicited PM phi do in some respects behave as stimulated or activated cells.