Studies on column fractionation of immune cells. VII. Electrophoretic mobility and functional behavior of mouse spleen cells after fractionation on a weakly basic ion exchanger.

After passing normal mouse spleen cells through columns of a weakly basic ion-exchanger, the percentage of cells with B cell-typical electrophoretic mobility (EPM) is 90% after fractionation at pH 8.0 and 10--20% at pH 5.0. However, the characterization of fractionated cells with regard to theta-antigen as well as graft-versus-host reaction shows that separation of T- and B-lymphocytes had not occurred. After incubation of the separated cells for 2 h at 37 degrees C the EPM returned to that of unseparated cells. It appears that the net charge of T- and B-lymphocytes is changeable depending on pH, temperature and separation material.