Rabbit Alveolar Macrophage Damage Caused by in Vivo Ozone Inhalation

The osmotic fragility of alveolar macrophages recovered from ozone-exposed rabbits was determined, using a fragiligraph. Lung lavage resulted in smaller recoveries of lung cells from rabbits exposed to 10 ppm of ozone for three hours, and the percentage of macrophages was decreased. Chronic low-dose exposures for a week did not affect the total number of recoverable lung cells but did result in increases in the percentage of neutrophils. The average time in minutes (± standard deviation) for complete lysis of control alveolar macrophages was 33.0 ± 6.,5 and 24.0 ± 2.2 (P < 0.05) for the acute 10-ppm ozone exposed cellsm Complete lysis times for the chronic 2 ppm and 0.5-ppm exposed cells were 25.2 ± 5.4 (P < 0.05) and 33.3 ± 7.5 (P, not significant), respectively, These changes in macrophage osmotic fragility occurred in the absence of detectable lipid peroxidation.