An automatic optical method for detection of rat lymphocyte subpopulations.

A flow cytophotometry method has been evaluated for the enumeration of rat lymphocyte subpopulations in lymph and lymph nodes. The cells were prepared by incubating them with complement and anti-Ig or anti-T antiserum, followed by trypan blue staining. Cytophotometry was used for automatic registration of dead and viable cells. Parallel viability counts were done in a microscope. In addition the cytotoxic activity of the anti-Ig antiserum was compared with its surface binding capacity in a direct immunofluorescence assay. Correlation was found between the automatic and microscopical registrations.