The reason of the down-regulation of genes with previously demonstrated functions in different phagocytosis pathways needs to be clarified in future studies. The variability of expression levels of apopto-phagocytic genes among differentiated UNC0642 macrophages of human donors was also investigated and striking differences were found. Although there were several genes with very low variability of SD between 20�C50%, the expression levels of another set of genes varied in 2�C3 orders of magnitude. The average relative expression level of non-variable genes was typically higher than that of the variable ones. During macrophage differentiation up-regulated genes partly overlapped with non-variable genes in some cases such as calreticulin, PPARc and CD68 while some with variable ones like FccRIIB, GAS6, ADORA3. The non-variable gene set might represent permanently switched on tools for the phagocytosis machinery while the variable set may provide alternative ways for phagocytosis under various local conditions to which macrophages may be exposed. Glucocorticoids are still the most potent immunosuppressive agents with complex and cell type specific actions on immune cells. Macrophages are relevant targets for anti-inflammatory therapy by glucocorticoids not only because of their large repertoire of inflammatory regulators, but also their alternative anti-inflammatory phenotype that was described recently. It was found that GCs modulate the expression of 130 genes, including antiinflammatory ones and those involved in chemotaxis, phagocytosis and antioxidative PF-06651600 inhibitor stress, while suppresses pro-inflammatory genes related to apoptosis, adhesion and T-cell chemotaxis. However, the authors generated the expression profiles of monocytes following only a 18 h stimulation with fluticasone, a new generation GC with a higher binding affinity to the GR than dexamethasone; this is a short time course and GCs may modulate gene transcription differently over a longer time period. According to our results most of the up-regulated apopto-phagocytic genes after 5 days of DXM exposure are the same as those observed after 18 hours treatment.