Characterization of Chicken Leukocyte Subsets from Lymphatic Tissue by Flow Cytometry

Determining the abundance of leukocyte subtypes, including lymphocyte subpopulations, not only in blood but also in lymphatic tissues, is inevitable to assess the immune status of an organism for research purposes. However, nucleated thrombocytes and erythrocytes exacerbate many hematological techniques in avian species. In order to enable a rapid discrimination of leukocyte subsets from lymphatic tissues of chicken, we adapted existing flow cytometric methods for counting leukocytes in chicken blood. We established staining and gating strategies allowing the flow cytometric characterization and enumeration of total leukocytes, thrombocytes, monocytes/macrophages, CD8α⁺ lymphocytes, CD4⁺ T cells, γδ T cells, and B cells in chicken spleen and CD8α⁺ lymphocytes, CD4⁺ T cells, γδ T cells, and B cells among intraepithelial lymphocytes in chicken cecal tonsils. For this, we prepared single-cell suspensions of spleen and isolated intraepithelial lymphocytes from cecal tonsils without density centrifugation, and performed antibody staining of cells without subsequent washing steps to prevent cell loss and falsification of obtained cell counts. © 2020 The Authors. Cytometry Part A published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Society for Advancement of Cytometry.