A Permanent Line of Macrophages with Normal Activity in a Primary Antibody Response In Vitro

Abstract

The ability of a permanent line of SV4O transformed mouse peritoneal macrophages to restore the plaqus-forming response to sheep erythrocytes of in vitro cultured normal mouse spleen lymphocytes depleted of macrophage activity by cell separation on a column of glass beads was investigated. The transformed macrophages retain the full restoration activity of normal primary peritoneal macrophages, while neither normal or SV4O transformed fibroblasts show the reconstituting activity. This easily grown cell line should aid investigation of macrophage activity and antigen processing.