Monocyte-mediated antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity: a clinical test
of monocyte function
DG Poplack, GD Bonnard, BJ Holiman and RM Blaese
The lack of a simple, rapid, and quantitative test of the functional
activity of the monocyte has hampered studies of the contribution of this
cell type to host defense and human disease. This report describes an assay
of antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity, which depends exclusively upon
the monocyte as the effector cell and therefore provides a convenient test
of monocyte function. In this system, mononuclear leukocytes (MNL) obtained
by Ficoll-Hypaque separation of whole blood are cytotoxic for 51Cr-labeled
human erythrocyte targets coated with anti-blood group antibody. Removal of
phagocytic monocytes from the MNL by iron ingestion, followed by exposure
to a magnetic field, completely abolishes all cytotoxic activity from the
remaining MNL population. Similarly, in severely mono-cytopenic patients
with aplastic anemia, cytotoxic effector activity is absent. In normals and
less severely monocytopenic aplastic anemia patients, cytotoxicity
correlates significantly (p less than 0.001) with monocyte number.
Application of this monocyte-mediated antibody-dependent cellular
cytotoxicity assay to the study of patients with the Wiskott-Aldrich
syndrome has revealed defective monocyte cytotoxic activity in spite of
normal monocyte numbers, suggesting that this test may be useful for the
assessment of monocyte function in a variety of clinical situations.
Volume 48,
Issue 6,
pp. 809-816,
12/01/1976
Copyright © 1976 by The American Society of Hematology
