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Respiratory Burst and Candidacidal Activity of Peritoneal Macrophages Are Impaired in Copper-Deficient Rats¹

Vitamin and Mineral Nutrition Laboratory, Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, MD 20705 and Nutritional Sciences Program, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742

To investigate the effect of dietary copper deficiency on the function of peritoneal macrophages, weaned male Lewis rats were pair-fed diets containing either adequate (7 mg/kg diet; +Cu) or deficient (0.7 mg/kg diet; -Cu) levels of copper for 5 wk. Cellular copper content and the activity of Cu, Zn superoxide dismutase were significantly lower in both resident and thioglycollate-elicited macrophages from -Cu rats than in cells from +Cu controls. Reduced cellular Cu status was associated with impaired respiratory burst as assessed by zymosan-induced chemiluminescent activity and superoxide anion (O) generation. Candidacidal activity of macrophages from -Cu rats was also reduced and was highly correlated with chemiluminescent activity and O generation. In contrast, phagocytosis of opsonized erythrocytes by peritoneal macrophages from -Cu rats was normal. Elicited peritoneal macrophages from marginally Cu-deficient rats also killed significantly fewer yeast cells than macrophages from +Cu rats. These results demonstrate that macrophage function is impaired by dietary Cu deficiency and that the candidacidal activity of these cells may provide a sensitive indicator of Cu status.

KEY WORDS: • copper • macrophages • respiratory burst • microbicidal activity • rats

¹ This work was presented in part at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, Washington, D. C., April 1990 [BABU, U. & FAILLA, M. L (1990) Respiratory burst and candidacidal activity are impaired in peritoneal macrophages and neutrophils from marginally and severely copper deficient rats. FASEB J. 4: A509 (abs. 1409)].

² Address all corresponsdence to: Dr. Mark Failla, USDA, ARS, BHNRC, VMNL, Bldg. 307, Room 205, BARC-East, Beltsville, MD 20705.

Manuscript received 21 February 1990. Revision accepted 6 June 1990.