Abstract
Phagocytosis of synthetic microspheres was determined by peritoneal macrophages and omental dendritic cells of nu/nu and nu/+ BALB/c and C57BL/10. LP mice during ontogenetic development. The macrophages of nu/nu mice phagocytized comparably to those of the nu/+ littermates till day 10 of their life. On day 25, the phagocytic activity of nu/nu mice sharply decreased but returned to normal and higher values at the age of 2 months. Omental dendritic cells showed similar ontogenetic behaviour in their ability to engulf microspheres as was found for free peritoneal macrophages.