APPLICATION OF SIX-COLOR FLOW CYTOMETRIC ANALYSIS FOR IMMUNE PROFILE MONITORING

Abstract

The article deals with applications of six-color flow analysis for studying the immune state parameters by means of flow cytometry. Whole blood from healthy donors was stained with combination of monoclonal antibodies, i.e., HLA-DR-FITC, CD16 + 56-PE, CD4-ECD, CD19-ECD, CD8-PC5.5, CD3-PC7, CD45-APC (Beckman Coulter, USA) using a “no-wash” technology. To adjust the photomultiplier (PMT) voltage, we used the tubes with each of the tested monoclonal antibodies, PMT voltage was considered optimal when the negative population was located in the middle of the first decade at the logarithmic scale. The compensatory adjustment was performed in automatic mode, using Navios software (Beckman Coulter, USA). We discuss an optimal gating strategy in order to assess the populations of interest: total T cells (CD3 + CD19 - ), T helper cells (CD3 + CD4 + ), cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CD3 + CD8 + ), B cells (CD3 - CD19 + ), NK cells (CD3 - CD16 + CD56 + ), NKT cells (CD3 + CD16 + CD56 + ), activated T lymphocytes (CD3 + HLA-DR + ).