Bruyninckx W J, Vanneste W H, Leijh P J, Van Furth R, Vercauteren R E
Department of Microbiology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins 80523.
Anal Biochem. 1990 Nov 15;191(1):144-55. doi: 10.1016/0003-2697(90)90401-t.
A stepwise approach to the selection of an appropriate technique for a cell separation problem is presented in which the preparative purification of cells is linked to their analytical separation. We have introduced the extent of elimination of a contaminating cell type from the cell type which one chooses to purify, as a separation parameter that characterizes the efficiency of a separation process independently of the relative cell composition of the starting material. In order to compare different separation techniques, a preparative fraction boundary needs to be chosen between the cell types. We defined this boundary in terms of the physical property on which the separation is based such that yield and purity of the isolated cell suspension are optimized simultaneously. With this analytical approach, it was found that a similar elutriation technique separated human and equine mononuclear cells equally well and that the separability of human monocytes and lymphocytes improved when the cells were separated by increasing the limiting sedimentation coefficient value of the elutriation chamber in small increments.
