The efficient bovine insulin presentation capacity of bone marrow-derived macrophages activated by granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor correlates with a high level of intracellular reducing thiols

Bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMM phi) were shown before to function as antigen-presenting cells. We show here, that the antigen presentation capacity of BMM phi depends on the nature of the antigen and is differently regulated by the lymphokines interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) and granulocyte/macrophage-colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF). When bovine insulin (BI) was employed as antigen, only BMM phi treated with GM-CSF (GM-CSF-M phi) were efficient presenters, but when presentation of the antigens ovalbumin and conalbumin was tested, IFN-gamma-pulsed BMM phi (IFN-gamma-M phi) proved superior to GM-CSF-M phi. The lack of efficient BI presentation function of IFN-gamma-M phi was only obviou…