Monoclonal antibodies directed against mouse macrophages in different stages of activation for tumor cytotoxicity.

Three rat monoclonal antibodies against mouse peritoneal macrophages in different stages of activation were produced and characterized. One of these (AcM.1) bound to activated macrophages induced by pyran and Corynebacterium parvum, but not to resident and thioglycollate medium- (TGC) or proteose peptone- (PP) elicited macrophages. On the contrary, the antigen identified by MM9 monoclonal antibody was expressed only on resident and TGC- or PP-elicited macrophages. WE15 monoclonal antibody, on the other hand, reacted with all of the macrophages described above. In the assay for function, AcM.1 and WE15 monoclonal antibodies in the presence of complement (C) abolished the capacity of activated macrophages induced by pyran or C. parvum but not the capacity of killer T cells and natural killer (NK) cells to kill tumor target cells. On the other hand, MM9 and anti-Thy-1.2 monoclonal antibodies in the presence of C, as expected, did not affect the cytotoxicity of activated macrophages. However, none of the four monoclonal antibodies in the absence of C had any blocking effect on macrophage-mediated cytotoxicity. AcM.1 antibody reacted with two polypeptides with m.w. of 70,000 and 45,000 on pyran-activated macrophages; however, the antigens recognized by WE15 and MM9 have not been determined yet. These results indicate that the three rat monoclonal antibodies define different antigens present on macrophages at different stages of activation for tumor cytotoxicity, and that these antibodies should prove to be useful probes for analyzing the mechanism of activation of macrophages for tumor cytotoxicity.