The murine myeloid cell line 32Dcl3 as a model system for studying neutrophil functions

The murine myeloid cell line 32Dcl3 is one of the few cell lines that can terminally differentiate into neutrophils. Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) drives the differentiation of these cells; therefore, G-CSF receptor signaling for neutrophil proliferation and differentiation has been studied extensively using this cell line as a model. Differentiated 32Dcl3 cells exhibit a striking morphologic similarity to normal neutrophils; however, the degree to which differentiated 32Dcl3 cells are functionally similar to normal neutrophils remains unknown. In this study, we compared the function of differentiated 32Dcl3 cells with mouse neutrophils. Our results demonstrate that a subclone of differentiated 32Dcl3 cells (32Dcl3C) exhibits normal neutrophil functions of phagocytosis, degranulation, adhesion and shape change in response to appropriate stimuli. These observations suggest that this cell line can serve as an effective model system to study similar mature neutrophil functions. However, 32Dcl3C cells fail to produce superoxide in response proper stimuli.