The single-cell assay in cell-mediated cytotoxicity

Studies on the humoral antibody response were greatly advanced by the introduction in 1963 of the Jerne plaque assay which permitted direct enumeration of individual antibody-producing plasma cells(1). Studies of cellular cytotoxicity were limited until recently to the examination of whole populations of effector cells(2). Here, Benjamin Bonavida and his colleagues describe an assay in agarose which allows the study of single cytotoxic cells(3-5).