In vitro reactivity of human lymphocytes after cryopreservation using a programmed cooling device.

In this article a technique is described for the cryopreservation of human lymphocytes employing a programmed cooling device. A preset temperature curve was used which compensated for the heat exchange during crystallization. The influence of this method of lymphocyte preservation on a variety of the in vitro functions of these cells was evaluated by means such as the lymphocyte transformation test, CML and investigations for lymphocyte membrane markers. All the lymphocyte functions that were tested were found to be retained in full.