Macrophage arginine metabolism via nitric oxide (NO) synthase and arginase pathways reduces and enhances tumor cell proliferation, respectively. Transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) has been shown to down-regulate the NO synthase pathway. The present study describes the effect of TGF-beta on the arginase pathway. TGF-beta up-regulated arginase activity in rat peritoneal macrophages as assessed by measuring the generation of [14C]urea from [14C]-L-arginine in the presence of NG-monomethyl-L-arginine (L-NMMA). The stimulation, which reached fivefold after a 48-h exposure of macrophages to 10 ng/ml TGF-beta, was due to reduction in Km value of arginase. TGF-beta-induced up-regulation of arginase activity led to the release of more polyamines, mainly putrescine. The role of this up-regulation on macrophage cytotoxicity toward L-929 tumor cells was analyzed in coculture experiments. Macrophages blunted DNA synthesis by L-929 cells as assessed by measuring the incorporation of [3H]TdR into the cells and the proportion of cells in the G2 phase. Addition of TGF-beta in the presence of L-NMMA permitted L-929 cells cocultured with macrophages to resume DNA synthesis. The mechanism responsible for this restoration was the up-regulation of arginase activity rather than the down-regulation of NO synthase activity since TGF-beta in the presence of L-NMMA failed to further reduce NO synthase activity whereas it still enhanced arginase activity; synthetic putrescine (1-10 microM) also blunted macrophage cytotoxicity toward L-929 cells. This is the first evidence that TGF-beta up-regulates arginase activity in macrophages and, hence, limits macrophage-dependent cytostasis.