Pam3 generates immunosupressive macrophages using p38, MAPK and PTGS2 signaling

The gene expression pattern of PAM3 treated monocytes was compared to that of M-CSF, the conventional method of generating immunosuppressive macrophage. Pathways regulated by NF-KB and Akt played a central role in the general process of monocyte to macrophage differentiation. p38 MAPK and PTGS2 signaling biased this process towards the generation of immunosuppressive rather than pro-inflammatory macrophage whereas ERK and JNK were essential for Pam3 but not M-CSF driven maturation DR+ monocytes from six different donors were sorted from PBMC then cultured in the presence of Pam, mCSF 3 or left unstimulated for 4 hours. For microarray experiments total RNA was extracted, amplified into aRNA and coupled to Cy5. Similarly amplified RNA from universal RNA was coupled to Cy3 and used as a reference for each array.