Labelling of leucocytes with colloidal technetium-99m-SnF2: an investigation of the labelling process by autoradiography.

Autoradiography of smears and frozen sections of labelled cell suspensions was used to study the distribution of radioactivity in and among blood cells labelled in either whole blood or leucocyte-rich plasma (LRP) with technetium-99m-SnF2 colloid. The tracer proved selective for neutrophils: the labelling probability (relative to that for erythrocytes) for each cell type in LRP (mean of five samples) was: neutrophils, 9.4; lymphocytes, 3.7; monocytes, 3.0; eosinophils 1.4; erythrocytes, 1.0. When labelling was carried out in whole blood (five samples), 74.5% +/- 8.3% of the cell-bound radioactivity was bound to erythrocytes, 13.6% +/- 6.5% to neutrophils, and 11.9% +/- 2.1% to lymphocytes, whereas in LRP (in which the leucocytes were only slightly outnumbered by erythrocytes), 76.5% +/- 14.9% of radioactivity was neutrophil bound. Labelled cells in smear autoradiographs exhibited two distinct silver grain patterns, "diffuse", consistent with an intracellular radioactive particle (in neutrophils), and "focal", consistent with a cell surface-adhering particle in direct contact with the emulsion (in other leucocyte types and erythrocytes). The phagocytic inhibitor cytochalasin B neither reduced the proportion of labelled neutrophils nor altered the labelling pattern. Neutrophils were able to scavenge radioactivity from the surface of erythrocytes. It is concluded that neutrophils bind 99mTc-SnF2 intracellularly by phagocytosis, with high affinity; other cells become labelled at the cell surface reversibly and with lower affinity. This selectivity is high enough to permit predominantly leucocyte labelling in LRP but not in whole blood.