POTENTIAL VALUE OF LIPOSOMES CONTAINING MURAMYL DIPEPTIDE FOR AUGMENTING THE TUMORICIDAL ACTIVITY OF HUMAN ALVEOLAR MACROPHAGES

  • 1 January 1984
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 3  (2) , 185-194
Abstract
Potentiation of the tumoricidal activity of human alveolar macrophages (AM) by muramyl dipeptide (MDP) and MDP in liposomes (liposome-MDP) was examined. Significant increase in AM-mediated cytotoxicity against allogeneic melanoma cells required the interaction of AM with liposome-MDP for a minimum of 4 h. The uptake by human AM of liposomes containing fluorescent quinacrine was examined. A linear correlation was found between the amount of liposomes added to AM monolayers and their phagocytosis of liposome-entrapped quinacrine. Addition of phosphatidylserine to liposomes composed of phosphatidylcholine enhanced both the phagocytosis of liposomes and the ability of liposome-MDP to potentiate the tumoricidal activity of human AM. In experiments on the dose response of liposomes containing 10 .mu.g/ml MDP, 50 nmol of liposomes/105 AM caused maximal activation of huma AM and > 100 nmol of liposomes was less effective. The results show that multilamellar vesicle liposomes containing MDP are more effective than free MDP in potentiating the tumoricidal activity of huma AM during culture for 4 h.

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