Figure 1.

Depletion of splenic and liver macrophages in wild type mice does not affect the half-life of IgG. (a) C57BL/6J mice (2–3 mice/group) were intravenously treated with clodronate (1.5 mg/dose) or PBS (control) liposomes at 0 h and 48 h, and single cell suspensions from spleens and livers were isolated at 120 h. Macrophage populations were analyzed using flow cytometry and data for one representative mouse from each group is shown. The gating strategies used for the identification of macrophage (MØ) populations are shown in Supplementary Figure 9C and D. (b) C57BL/6J mice (5–6 mice/group) were intravenously treated with clodronate (1.5 mg/dose) or PBS (control) liposomes at 0 h and 48 h. ¹²⁵I-labeled mIgG1 was injected (i.v.) at 18 h following the first injection of clodronate liposomes, and whole body radioactivity levels were determined at the indicated times. (c) β-phase half-lives of mIgG1 in different mice obtained by fitting the pharmacokinetic data to a decaying bi-exponential model. Error bars indicate SEM. N.S., no significant difference (p > .05; two-tailed Student‘s t-test). Data shown in panels b and c is representative of two independent experiments.