[New technic for purification of lymphocytes for HLA typing]

Many of the difficulties encountered in HLA typing derive from the separation of relatively pure cell suspensions for the lymphocytotoxicity test. We have used Immunomagnetic Beads (I.B.) coated with anti-CD8 or CD2 MAb for Class I positive cell selection and I.B. coated with anti-DR for Class II. With this method, compared to traditional techniques, we obtained high purity and viability of cell populations (about 90%), directly from whole blood in 25 minutes. Shorter incubation with antisera and complement was needed and the global time of tissue typing results decreased (150 min. versus 6 hours). There was no single discrepancy in the tissue typing results between I.B. and traditional methods.