Phagocytosis by sheep alveolar macrophages: relationship between opsonin concentration and light emission in the presence of luminol.

The observations reported may be applied to determining the effects of various compounds, e.g., environmental pollutants and agricultural chemicals, upon the phagocytic activity of alveolar macrophages, and the method described will aid in detecting compounds which alter Fc receptor activity. A direct linear relationship existed between the concentration of antibody used to opsonize bacterial particles and the quantity of luminol-dependent light emitted by a population of sheep alveolar macrophages exposed to the opsonized particles. The relationship can be illustrated with a Lineweaver-Burk-style double-reciprocal plot. An analogy is suggested between the kinetics of enzyme substrate reactions and the interaction of antibody-coated particles with Fc receptors on cell membranes.