Comparison of complement-dependent cytotoxicity and indirect immunofluorescence for enumeration of T-cell subpopulations in human peripheral blood.

The monitoring of T-lymphocyte subsets of recipients of organ grafts enables studies on immune reconstitution (after bone-marrow transplantation) and may predict graft rejection (after kidney transplantation). Quantitation of human peripheral T-lymphocyte subsets from healthy volunteers and from recipients of a bone-marrow graft by a complement dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) assay, based on the use of propidium iodide, and by an indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) technique has been compared using the monoclonal antibodies OKT3, OKT4 and OKT8. Except for OKT3 in healthy individuals--for which no significant difference was found between CDC and IIF--CDC detected significantly more cells of each subset than IIF. Furthermore, the CDC results indicated the presence of low numbers of OKT4+8+ cells in the peripheral blood of healthy individuals and--with higher numbers--following marrow transplantation. Results of depletion experiments, obtained by fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) for either OKT4 or OKT8, supported this conclusion. OKT4/OKT8 ratios were calculated from enumerations by the CDC assay and by the IIF assay and found to be linearly related, both in healthy persons and in marrow-graft recipients. Thus, the CDC assay is a reliable method for monitoring T-cell subsets, allowing detection of lymphocytes carrying low densities of membrane determinants.