Isolation and functional characterization of mononuclear phagocytes from human lepromatous lesions.

The macrophage seems to have a major role in the pathogenesis of many chronic inflammatory disea­ ses. Its different morphologic aspects seen in many lesions led to assume that these cells have different functions too. The isolation of macrophages from tis­ sue lesions has been a difficult step hindering the re­ searches about their biological functions at the site of injury. In leprosy, the course of the disease is related to the macrophage capacity in destroying or not the bacil­ lus within them. Epithelioid and giant cells are charac­ teristic of the benign type of the disease. On the other hand, in the lepromatous type, mononuclear phago­ cytes carry many bacilli and are unable to kill them. Isolation and culturing of macrophages from animals with experimental granulomatous disease have been done after enzymatic digestion of tissue1311. In this paper, these cells were isolated from human lepromatous lesions by using an enzyme mixture of collagenase, dispase and desoxiribonuclease and some of their functional properties were analyzed.