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Infect Immun, February 1998, p. 627-635, Vol. 66, No. 2
0019-9567/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Coiling Phagocytosis Discriminates between Different Spirochetes and Is Enhanced by Phorbol Myristate Acetate and Granulocyte- Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor

M. G. Rittig,^1,* J. C. Jagoda,¹ B. Wilske,² R. Murgia,³ M. Cinco,³ R. Repp,⁴ G. R. Burmester,⁵ and A. Krause⁵

Department of Anatomy¹ and Department of Internal Medicine III,⁴ University of Erlangen, Erlangen, Max-von-Pettenkofer-Institut, University of Munich, Munich,² and Department of Internal Medicine III, University Hospital Charité, Berlin,⁵ Germany, and Department of Microbiology, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy³

Received 14 July 1997/Returned for modification 5 September 1997/Accepted 2 October 1997

The mechanisms involved in coiling phagocytosis are not yet known, and it is not even clear whether this phenomenon is either an incidental event or a specific response. Therefore, the phagocytic uptake of Borrelia burgdorferi and other spirochetes by human monocytes in vitro was used to investigate the involvement of both sidesmicrobes and phagocytesin coiling phagocytosis. As seen with electron microscopy, morphologically similar Borrelia, Leptospira and Treponema strains induced markedly different frequencies of coiling phagocytosis. The monocytes used coiling phagocytosis for both live (motile) and killed (nonmotile) B. burgdorferi, but pseudopod coils were observed neither with fragmented B. burgdorferi nor with cell-free supernatant from B. burgdorferi cultures. Investigation of the relationship of coiling phagocytosis with other pseudopod-based cellular mechanisms revealed that the use of bioreagents that inhibit conventional phagocytosis also inhibited coiling phagocytis but did not affect membrane ruffling. Bioreagents that increase membrane ruffling did not affect phagocytosis of B. burgdorferi, except for granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor and phorbol myristate acetate, which increased coiling phagocytosis selectively. These results demonstrate that coiling phagocytosis is not induced by microbial motility, viability, or a certain morphology and that it is not a random event. Rather, it is a selective uptake mechanism actively driven by the phagocytes. However, whether coiling phagocytosis represents an independent alternative to conventional phagocytosis or, alternatively, a fault in conventional phagocytosis remains to be determined.

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^* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Anatomy I, University of Erlangen, Krankenhausstrasse 9, D-91054 Erlangen, Germany. Phone: (49)913185-3707. Fax: (49)913185-2863. E-mail: mfa103{at}rzmail.uni-erlangen.de.

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