Human lymphocyte proliferation kinetics in Hanks' BSS supplemented with autologous plasma and in synthetic medium

Human lymphocyte proliferation kinetics was studied in different culture conditions including synthetic medium, Hanks' BSS and Hanks' supplemented with autologous plasma at several culture times. Even though mitotic indices (MI) were low, lymphocytes were able to divide for a few cycles in BSS alone, with a cycling time of around 24 h. Similar cell proliferation patterns with similar MIs, replication indices and cell cycle times of approximately 12 h were obtained with RPMI 1640 and with autologous plasma-supplemented BSS, although lymphocytes exhibited a more uniform MI distribution curve in synthetic medium. The findings mentioned above suggest that Hanks' with autologous plasma may represent a suitable and inexpensive culture condition to avoid undesirable side effects related to synthetic media and heterologous sera, for diagnostics as well as research cytogenetics.