Dear Romain,

the cells of the monocyte/macrophage lineage thatare found in blood are called monocytes. The term macrophages is restricted to cells in tissue and M2 macrophages are cells that have been exposed to IL-4 and M1 macrophages are cells that have been exposed to LPS and IFNgamma. M1 and M2 is not used in the context of monocytes in blood.

So what you do in order to identify monocytes is to stain with antibodies CD14 and CD16 multicolor flow cytometry. This will identify total monocytes and the three subsets. For more details see www.monocyte.eu and the enclosed papers.

Best wishes

Loems

Here are the papers

You won't detect macrophages in blood samples - they are derived from blood monocytes after monocytes exit the vasculature and enter tissues. Blood monocytes can be identified and isolated by labelling with anti CD 14 antibodies.

Dear Loems and Caroline,

Thank you very much both for your precise and detailed answers.

Best regards.

Macrophages are Monocytes which become resident in the different tissues. In peripheral blood Monocytes can be counted by total and differential leucocytic count. The Monocytes can be counted using flow cytometry with anti CD 14 and anti CD16 fluorescein labeled monoclonal antibodies which can differentiate them into 3 types: Classical monocytes, Non-classical monocytes and intermediate monocytes