Harvesting lymphocytes from Peripheral Blood

Blood Harvest

・        Anesthetize mice with 50 m l of Xylene-Ketamine (2:1) coctail

・        Pin animal to a board (use distal extremities) supine

・        Use 70% alcohol to moisten the abdomen and lower thorax

・        Make an midline incision using forceps and scissors from mid abdomen to xyphoid process

・        Dissect to the left side of the animal and open the peritoneum , exposing the liver and diaphragm

・        Lift the anterior chest wall with a forcep , the heart should be apparent though the translucent diaphragm

・        Fill a 1cc syringe with 300 m l of heparin

・        Holding the syringe comfortably, with one concert motion insert the needle into the heart through the diaphragm and draw blood

・        Should the first attempt not succeed and pneumothorax develops, immediately open the chest cavity through a midline incision (sternotomy ) and draw blood directly from the heart

Labeling lymphocytes and separating lymphocytes from the whole blood

・        Add 250 m l of DMEM with 10% Fetal Goat Serum(FGS) to 250 m l of whole blood to block nonspecific binding

・        Incubate at 4 ° C for 10 minutes

・        Add 1 m g of appropriate antibodies to the specimen (usually about a million cells)

・        Incubate at 4 ° C for 30 minutes

・        Add 2ml of cold lytic buffer solution to each specimen for 2 minutes � gently shake them

・        After 2 minutes fill the facs tubes with PBS

・        Spin at 1000rpm (450g) for 10 minutes at 4 ° C

・        Aspirate supernatant to pallet using vacuum setup

・        Add 2ml of lytic buffer solution for the second time for the residual RBCs and fill tubes with PBS.  Spin again for 10 minutes at 1000rpm at 4 ° C

・        Aspirate supernatant with vacuum setup to pallet

・        Add ½ ml of PBS to the pallets and gently mix them

・        Specimens are ready to be read by the facs machine.  They can be stored at 4 ° C for at least 2 days.