Nylon wool column separation of chicken thymic-derived (T) and bursal-derived (B) lymphocytes

Since the original work of Julius et al. (1973), the nylon wool technique has become a standard laboratory procedure for separating cell populations and obtaining relatively pure populations of T and B cells. While this technique has been applied to a number of different animal systems, it had, to our knowledge, neither been qualitated nor quantitated in the chicken. One passage of chicken splenic lymphocytes through a nylon wool column yields an enriched T cell population in the effluent fraction and an enriched B cell population in the column fraction. As in the murine system, we found fractionation of chicken splenic cells by nylon wool to be a rapid method for enrichment of both T and B cell populations. It is emphasized, however, that each passage should be monitored to check the relative purity of the two cell populations.