An immunomagnetic single-platform image cytometer for cell enumeration based on antibody specificity.

Simplification of cell enumeration technologies is necessary, especially for resource-poor countries, where reliable and affordable enumeration systems are greatly needed. In this paper, an immunomagnetic single-platform image cytometer (SP ICM) for cell enumeration based on antibody specificity is reported. A chamber/magnet assembly was designed such that the immunomagnetically labeled, acridine orange-stained cells in a blood sample moved to the surface of the chamber, where a fluorescent image was captured and analyzed for cell enumeration. The system was evaluated by applying one kind of antibody to count leukocytes and one kind for each leukocyte subpopulation: CD45 for leukocytes, CD3 for T lymphocytes, and CD19 for B lymphocytes. Excellent precision and linearity were achieved. Moreover, these cell counts, each from blood specimens of 42 to 52 randomly selected patients, were compared with those obtained by SP (TruCount) and dual-platform (DP) flow cytometry (FCM) technologies. The cell counts obtained by our system were in between those obtained from the TruCount and DP FCM methods; and good correlations were achieved (R > or = 0.95). For CD4(+) counts, as we expected, the cell count by our system was significantly higher than the CD4(+) T-lymphocyte counts obtained by SP and DP FCM methods. Immunophenotyping of the immunomagnetically selected CD4(+) cells showed that, besides CD4(+) T lymphocytes, a proportion of the CD4(+) dim monocytes was also selected. Our system is a simple immunomagnetic SP ICM, which can potentially be used for enumeration of CD3(+) CD4(+) T lymphocytes in resource-poor countries if an additional CD3 immunofluorescent label is applied.