Segregation of normal and pathological human red blood cells, lymphocytes and fibroblasts by immobilized metal-ion affinity partitioning.

Immobilized metal-ion affinity partitioning (IMAP) is shown to be useful as a preliminary screening test and for the separation of different cell populations based upon recognition of the differences in the proteins on cell surfaces. The feasibility of using IMAP to segregate a spectrum of normal human cells (red blood cells, lymphocytes and fibroblasts) from their counterpart pathological cells has been demonstrated. A clear segregation between normal and sickle-cell anemia red blood cells (RBC), or malaria (Plasmodium vivax) infected RBCs was obtained. Further, the partition differences were found to depend on the nature and the concentrations of metal used. Cells from breast cancer and those from the lung adenocarcinoma showed differences in their partition pattern as compared to normal fibroblasts when PEG-IDA-M(II) was added to the phase system. Maximum differences between the three cell populations were observed in the presence of 10% PEG-IDA-Ni(II). Normal lymphocytes and Burkitt's lymphoma cells (Raji and Namalwa cell lines) were shown to partition differently in the presence of PEG-IDA-M(II) in the phase system. Normal lymphocytes could be distinguished from the Burkitt's lymphoma cell lines in all three phases (top, interface and bottom), in the presence of 10% PEG-IDA-Ni(II) in the system. These differences in the partition behavior could mainly be attributed to the density, surface exposure and micro-environment of histidine residues of cell membrane-associated proteins. These data, along with those obtained for normal and pathological human cells show that IMAP could be a simple and versatile tool for the segregation and study of cells.