Isolation of blood granulocytes from golden hamsters for the study of chemotaxis

Since the number of granulocytes is low in the circulating pool of adult golden hamsters, intraperitoneal injection of oyster glycogen was used to mobilize white blood cells from the non-circulating pool. The percentage of blood granulocytes increased from 7 to 49%. Mobilized granulocytes, purified by a discontinuous Percoll gradient, showed adherence to polycarbonate filters only when coated by collagen. Random migration was high using the modified Boyden chamber technique. While endotoxin-activated serum caused chemotactic response, it was absent when the tripeptide N-formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine was applied at concentrations of 10(-7) or 10(-8) M. The true chemotactic response corresponded to the proportion of migrated cells versus the total cell number adherent to both sides of the filter. It is concluded that the golden hamster is a good model for the study of granulocyte sequestration.