The percentage of normal human monocytes (MCs) that are able to form rosettes with, and subsequently phagocytose, IgG-coated red blood cells (RBCs) has been determined in vitro using five batches of anti-RBC IgG antibodies. These antibodies differed from each other by their capacity to bind to lectins recognizing two of the oligosaccharide structures of the Fc domain, namely, peanut agglutinin (PNA) and concanavalin A (ConA) which specifically bind to beta-galactosyl and alpha-mannosyl residues, respectively. The threshold between high (H) and low (L) binding capacities (BC) was arbitrarily fixed at 15% of mean specific binding. For each level of RBC sensitization tested (1500-6000 Ab molecules/one RBC), the percentage of MCs binding at least three IgG-RBCs was similar whatever the IgG Ab preparations used. In contrast, the percentage of MCs capable of phagocytosing at least three IgG-RBCs coated with 3000, 4500 and 6000 IgG/cell, as well as the phagocytosis index (number of IgG-RBCs ingested/100 MCs) of IgG-RBCs coated with 1500, 3000, 4500 and 6000 IgG/cell, were significantly lower (P less than 0.01 at least) using IgG Ab molecules with either [(PNA-H)(ConA-H)] BC, [(PNA-L) (ConA-H)] BC or with [(PNA-L)(ConA-L)] BC than the corresponding values measured using RBCs coated with IgG Ab molecules exhibiting [(PNA-H)(ConA-L)] BC. The binding to MCs of 125I-labelled anti-RBC IgG Ab molecules exhibiting different binding profiles to PNA and to ConA was studied by Scatchard plot analysis. A single class of binding sites was observed in each case. MCs bound a mean of 23,000 IgG molecules with a mean association constant (Ka) for IgG binding of about 1.4 X 10(8) M-1. These data indicate that terminal (and/or accessible) galactosyl and mannosyl residues of IgG Ab molecules play a role in the ingestion of IgG-RBCs by human MCs, despite the fact IgG Ab binding to IgG(Fc) receptors is not significantly affected. Thus, when studying the phagocytosis of IgG-coated RBC by human MC monolayers, the assay should be performed not only using similar RBC/MC ratios and IgG coating values, but also with IgG antibodies having comparable mean PNA and ConA binding capacities.