A simple rapid technique to measure neutrophil or serum bactericidal activity

A rapid and simple technique to measure both serum and neutrophil bactericidal activity is described. It is based on microtitre equipment and avoids the cumbersome and time consuming serial dilution and plate counting of conventional experiments. A constant concentration of neutrophils and/or serum is incubated with a series of dilutions of bacterial suspensions. Bacterial survival is estimated at various times from their ability to form colonies on agar and the results conveniently expressed as the largest bacterial population that can be eliminated by either neutrophils or serum alone. The technique is as simple and quick as a standard microtitre MBC test commonly used for antibiotics and scoring of the results takes only a few seconds per sample. Data are presented showing the close correlation between results obtained using this technique and those from conventional tests of neutrophil bactericidal activity and phagocytosis-associated chemiluminescence.