Figure 4

Kinematics and dynamics of human dendritic cells and macrophage differentiation in vitro. Cultured in vitro, monocytes may change their shape, dimension and size when opportunely stimulated by specific growth factors. Kinematics studies these changes without considering the nature of the entities to which they belong or what causes the changes (A). Cultivation in vitro with Granulocyte Macrophage-Colony Stimulating Factor (GM-CSF) alone or with Interleukin-4 (IL-4) selectively determines differentiation into macrophages or dendritic cells (B). In this case the study of the temporal transformations of primary monocytes in relation to the causes determining the changes, is defined as dynamics of the anatomical forms.