Infiltration and survival: the behaviour of normal, invasive cells implanted to the developing chick wing

The invasiveness of mouse lymphocytes and thymocytes, rabbit peritoneal neutrophil granulocytes (PMNs), mouse peritoneal macrophages (both activated and non-activated) and pig endothelial cells was assayed by implanting these cells to the chick wing bud. Cells of each type moved into the wing mesenchyme, although activated macrophages invaded poorly. PMNs were the most invasive cells and had moved well into the limb after only a few hours. PMNs, lymphocytes and thymocytes were ingested by wing mesenchyme cells. Endothelial cells, however, ingested chick blood cells. The implanted cells showed differences in ability to survive in the limb: PMNs disappeared rapidly, lymphocytes and thymocytes sometimes persisted for 24 h, while grafts of macrophages and endothelial cells were present at 24 h. Mechanisms which might be involved in the invasiveness of these cells, and also in their different abilities to survive in the chick wing, are discussed with particular reference to the production of plasminogen activator.