Assessment of attachment, ingestion, and killing of Escherichia coli by bovine polymorphonuclear cells with combined micromethods.

A set of microassays separately measuring attachment, ingestion, and overall killing of Escherichia coli by bovine granulocytes was devised and its analytical potential used to test the effect of drugs which block intracellular killing: sodium azide, phenylbutazone, chloroquine phosphate were all inactive, suggesting that O2-dependent systems were not the sole pathway involved in the killing of E.coli by granulocytes. The microtechniques were also used to investigate the opsonic requirements for phagocytosis of two E.coli strains. Absorption of normal bovine serum with the homologous and the heterologous strains showed that specific antibodies were necessary to induce attachment of bacteria to phagocytes. Once bound to granulocytes, the unencapsulated strain P4 was engulfed, whereas for the encapsulated strain B117, complement was required for the internalization step of phagocytosis. With immune serum the need for complement was not absolute.