Differential expression of colony-stimulating factor (CSF) in murine macrophage clones: interferon-gamma-mediated inhibition of CSF production

Bioassay and northern blot analyses revealed that, among several functional murine macrophage (M phi) clones, lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation generated in distinct induction levels of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), and macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF). When compared with these induction profiles, the M phi clones could be classified into two types; G type (G-CSF GM-CSF-M-CSF+) and GM type (G-CSF +/- GM-CSF M-CSF+) of M phi clones. Unlike G-CSF and GM-CSF that were inducible factors, M-CSF mRNA was constitutively expressed without stimulation and was differentially controlled between the G and GM types; LPS induction decreased M-CSF mRNA in the former, but increased it in the latter. Further northern blot analysis revealed that interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) suppressed constitutive expression of M-CSF mRNA, and that costimulation with both LPS and IFN-gamma reduced expression of G-CSF and M-CSF mRNA in the G type of M phi clone, but induced higher expression of GM-CSF and M-CSF mRNAs in the GM type of M phi clone compared with LPS alone. However, in either case, IFN-gamma completely inhibited LPS-induced production of active CSF of the M phi clones, which was observed even in IFN-gamma pretreatment, and also abrogated autoactivation of GM-CSF. Our present results suggested that murine M phi clones had differentially regulated expression of CSFs and that IFN-gamma had a regulatory function of inhibiting CSF production of murine M phi s.