Studying leukocyte rolling and adhesion in vitro under flow conditions

Leukocyte recruitment from the vasculature occurs under conditions of hemodynamic shear stress. The parallel-plate flow chamber apparatus is an in vitro system that is widely used to study leukocyte recruitment under shear conditions. The flow chamber is a versatile tool for examining adhesive interactions, as it can be used to study a variety of adhesive substrates, ranging from monolayers of primary cells to isolated adhesion molecules, and a variety of adhesive particles, ranging from leukocytes in whole blood to antibody-coated Latex beads. We describe methods for studying leukocyte recruitment to cytokine-stimulated endothelial cells using both whole blood and isolated leukocyte suspensions. These methods enable multiple parameters to be measured, including the total number of recruited leukocytes, the percentage of leukocytes that are rolling or firmly adherent, and the percentage of leukocytes that have transmigrated. Although these methods are described for interactions between leukocytes and endothelial cells, they are broadly applicable to the study of interactions between many combinations of adhesive substrate and adhesive particles.