Simultaneous flow cytometric evaluation of phagocytosis and oxidative burst in human polymorphonuclear cells.

Phagocytosis and oxidative burst (OXIBURST) activity of human polymorphonuclear cells (PMNs) has been simultaneously measured directly in whole blood samples. The ingestion of yeast was assessed by the phagocytosis activity (FA) and phagocytosis index (FI), and the respiratory burst of PMNs was determined as dihydroethidine (DHE) oxidation. We received comparable results in the ingestion of yeast cells by PMNs using either light microscopy (77.31+/-7.56) or flow cytometry detection method (78.26+/-5.14). The significant differences (p<0.05) in FI and OXIBURST activity were find in the patients (2.29+/-0.29 and 14.67+/-3.99, respectively) when compared to healthy donors (1.64+/-0.21 and 32.38+/-14.94, respectively). The two-color flow cytometric procedure permits measurement of two different functions of neutrophils in one step. This flow cytometric procedure is simple, rapid and has the potential to be an alternative assay to test leukocyte function. (Fig. 3, Ref: 30.)