Optimizing the Lymphocyte Transformation Test in Whole Blood. I. Optimum Conditions for Thymidine Incorporation

Abstract
The correlation between mitogen concentration and 3H-thymidine incorporation can be described mathematically by a sigmoid dose-response curve. Thymidine incorporation/human lymphocyte (Ti/Ly) was calculated to facilitate comparison of results. It was highest at a blood dilution of 1:50, lower at 1:10 or 1:250. Ti/Ly obtained with optimum concentrations of PHA [phytohemagglutinin] was higher than with ConA [concanavalin A]. Advantages of this optimized method for whole blood over Ficoll-separated mononuclear cells are the higher Ti/Ly, the smaller quantities of blood required and the lower experimental effort.