Isolation of Immunologically Competent Lymphocytes from Sensitized Mouse Spleens. ∗

Summary

Highly purified suspensions of living, immunologically competent lymphocytes were obtained from splenic tissue of mice by destroying the red blood cells with hypotonic saline and separating the nucleated cells by centrifugation. The procedure yielded approximately 40 million lymphocytes from each spleen. Usually 96% (range 90–99%) of the cells were lymphocytes; the rest were other nucleated cells. The viability of lymphocytes was demonstrated by their motility and the exclusion of dye from their cytoplasm. The immunologic competence of these cells was shown by their cytolytic effect on homologous cells in vitro.