Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs): Role and applications
Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMCs) are key immune cells separate from peripheral blood and crucial to the immune response. They identify and eliminate abnormal cells and foreign pathogens to preserve health.
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Lymphocytes comprise around 70–90 % of the total cell population with PMBCs. They are classified into several groups: T cells (CD3+), B cells (CD3-CD19+), and NK cells (CD3-CD16+CD56+). T cells are separated according to CD4 and CD8 expression into cytotoxic T cells (CD3+CD8+) and helper T cells (CD3+CD4+).
PBMCs are critical in research and clinical settings. They function as a primary cell source for cell therapies like CAR-T. They are crucial in various applications, such as in vitro biomarker detection and tumor immunology, rare disease research, and toxicology. Observing the proportions of different PBMC subpopulations is vital in immune cell therapy applications like CAR-T cell therapy.
The importance of PBMC subpopulation analysis in CAR-T cell therapy
CAR-T cell therapy usually involves the following key stages: 1. identifying the cell source, 2. preparing the cell product, and 3. evaluating therapeutic outcomes. As the main source of CAR-T cells, an awareness of the proportion of various cell types and subpopulations within PBMCs is crucial for directing cell therapy processes, evaluating cell purity, and assessing in vivo efficacy.
Monitoring the proportion of different cells and subpopulations in PBMCs or final products is key to the safety and efficacy of CAR-T cell therapies. Regulatory bodies, including the European Medicines Agency, the China National Medical Products Administration, and the US Food and Drug Administration, stress the need for comprehensive cellular phenotype analysis, including percentages of NK cells, and CD3+, CD4+, and CD8+ T cells.
CAR-T cell products’ quality control standards incorporate characterization, uniformity, and purity testing to ensure and uphold product quality and consistency.
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Flow cytometry-based immune cell profiling
Immune cell profiling technologies include chip-based assays, qPCR, next-generation sequencing, and flow cytometry. Flow cytometry is most desirable due to its efficiency, high throughput, and precision. It can identify and sort cells based on surface markers through antibody binding and fluorochrome conjugation, facilitating precision quantification of immune cell subpopulations.
This technique’s high sensitivity and specificity make it widely used in clinical sample analysis and basic research.
Introducing the ClinMax™ Human TBNK 6-color Cocktail Flow Panel
ACROBiosystems proudly presents the ClinMax™ Human TBNK 6-color Cocktail Flow Panel (Cat. No. ICA-A001), a cutting-edge solution for immune cell profiling. This panel, designed using meticulous methodological validation and proprietary technology, offers a reliable means of rapidly detecting T cells, B cells, and NK cells in human whole blood or PBMCs.
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About ACROBiosystems
ACROBiosystems is a cornerstone enterprise of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Their mission is to help overcome challenges with innovative tools and solutions from discovery to the clinic. They supply life science tools designed to be used in discovery research and scalable to the clinical phase and beyond. By consistently adapting to new regulatory challenges and guidelines, ACROBiosystems delivers solutions, whether it comes through recombinant proteins, antibodies, assay kits, GMP-grade reagents, or custom services. ACROBiosystems empower scientists and engineers dedicated towards innovation to simplify and accelerate the development of new, better, and more affordable medicine.
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