In article <31mthbINN3lt at woozle.mel.dbe.CSIRO.AU>,
deanh at tigger.mel.dbe.csiro.au (Dean Hewish) writes:
<My wife needs to distinguish active phagocytosis from passive
absorbance in human peripheral blood macrophages. She wants to inhibit
phagocytosis in her controls. Cytochalasin-b has been reported to be an
inhibitor of phagocytosis but it doesn't work to 100% in her system (
the cells still take up the particles). Does anyone know if there are
any tricks to using cytochalasin-b and if there are any other agents
that can be used to inhibit phagocytosis?>
I find that cytochalasin D at 10 micrograms/ml completely inhibits
phagocytosis by mouse macrophages so I was surprised to read you were
having problems. Are there differences in the efficiencies of different
cytochalasins?
Temperatures below 18degC should also inhibit phagocytosis whilst allowing
particle binding so you may want to try incubating your cells with
particles on ice.
Caetano Reis e Sousa
NIH, Bldg. 10, Rm. 11N250, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
