Detection of human mononuclear cell subsets by complement fixing monoclonal antibodies: evaluation of manual procedures.

Manual procedures to evaluate mononuclear cells reacted with monoclonal antibodies were evaluated with respect to reproducibility, ease of execution, and cost. The immunofluorescent technique and the complement-mediated cytotoxicity test produced very similar results; however, the latter was clearly preferable in terms of cost, time-consumption, and ease of execution. Evidence is also presented that purification of lymphocytes using gradient diffusion techniques may induce an uneven selectivity within the relative percentages of T cell subsets collected for analysis.