title: Macrophage-like tumor cells as tools to study chemoattractive activity.
abstract: Macrophage-like tumor cells can be obtained in large quantities as rather homogeneous populations, making these cells useful for chemotaxis assays. Therefore, macrophage-like cells J774A, WEHI-3, P388D1, IC-21, and NCTC 1469, all of murine origin, and U937 of human origin, were tested for chemotactic activity to a number of chemoattractive agents, such as casein, an N-formyl tetrapeptide (N-formyl-L-norleucyl-L-leucyl-L-phenylalanyl-L-tyrosine), and culture supernatants of murine SL2 lymphoma cells. J774A and WEHI-3 macrophage-like cells of murine (BALB/c) origin expressed the strongest chemotactic activity to casein and N-formyl tetrapeptide, respectively. The results show that: very standardized chemotaxis assays can be performed using these cell lines; these assays require appropriate cell line-stimulus combinations; there are substantial differences among cell lines as to sensitivity to various chemoattractive substances; macrophage cell lines and functional mutants may be helpful for the study of receptors for chemotaxins and the study of transducer signals for chemotaxis.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002364:Caseins / Q000494:pharmacology; D002460:Cell Line; D002630:Chemotactic Factors / Q000494:pharmacology; D002634:Chemotaxis, Leukocyte; D007941:Leukemia P388 / Q000473:pathology; D007951:Leukemia, Myeloid / Q000473:pathology; D008228:Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin / Q000473:pathology; D008264:Macrophages / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D008811:Mice, Inbred DBA; D009842:Oligopeptides / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D002364:Caseins; D002630:Chemotactic Factors; D009842:Oligopeptides; C021642:F-chemotactic peptide