Receptor Clearance Obscures the Magnitude of Granulocyte-Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor Responses in Mice to Endotoxin or Local Infections
Marrow cells from mice lacking high-affinity receptors for granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF; βc−/− mice) were shown to bind and internalize much less GM-CSF than cells from normal (βc+/+) mice. βc−/− mice were used to determine the effect of negligible receptor-mediated clearance on detectible GM-CSF responses to the intravenous injection of endotoxin or the intraperitoneal injection of casein plus microorganisms. Unlike the minor serum GM-CSF responses to endotoxin seen in βc+/+ mice, serum GM-CSF levels rose 30-fold to 9 ng/mL in βc−/− mice even though loss of GM-CSF in the urine was greater than in βc+/+ mice. Organs from βc−/− and βc+/+ mice had a similar capacity to produce GM-CSF in vitro, as did peritoneal cells from both types of mice when challenged in vitro by casein. However, when casein was injected intraperitoneally, βc−/− mice developed higher and more sustained levels of GM-CSF than did βc+/+ mice. The data indicated that receptor-dependent removal of GM-CSF masks the magnitude of GM-CSF responses to endotoxin and local infections. Because of this phenomenon, serum GM-CSF concentrations can be a misleading index of the occurrence or nonoccurrence of GM-CSF responses to infections.