The most you could do is try and quantify highly activated macrophages which could be seen by their fluffy cloud appearance and maybe count polymorphonucelar cells. If you want to distinguish further you should do some flow cytometry maybe look for expression of Ly6G/C or markers of alternative versus classical activation. In a less quantifiable way you could do the same but with immunohistochemistry. A functional read out might be to take out and measure nitric oxide and arginase production. Sounds interesting good luck!

Thank you for your answer. I would like doing flow cytometry in near future and quantify specific effector functions. However is really interesting the changing phenotype of macrophages during the course of infection. As you wrote about quantification of highly activated macrophages, yes they can be seen as fluffy cloud sometimes I am thinking how thin can be border between them and epithelioid cells. I had read lot of characteristic about epithelioid cells which seems to me too similar with that of alternative activation. And about polymorphonuclear cells, I can really easily see red granules within the eosinophils so hope I can count them separately.