Identification of T and B cell subpopulations in human peripheral blood: electrophoretic mobility distributions associated with surface marker characteristics.

The electrophoretic mobility distributions of human peripheral blood lymphocytes isolated on Ficoll-Hypaque gradients were characterized by laser Doppler spectroscopy. Three major subpopulations were spectrally resolved, due to differences in their mobility, when an electric field was applied to the scattering cuvette. The fastest component (centered at 2.35 mum/sec/V/cm for 25 degrees C, 0.28 M sucrose medium of 0.005 ionic strength) passed through nylon fiber columns and was identified as a T cell subpopulation. The slowest component (1.85 mum/sec/V/cm) which was further enriched by a one-step rosette procedure with sheep erythrocytes, reacted with activated-complement (C3) and antiserum to human immunoglobulins and was therefore identified as a B cell subpopulation. The intermediate component (centered at 2.15 mum/sec/V/cm) appears to be another T cellsubpopulation. Although cells of this component did not pass through nylon fiber columns, they did rosette with sheep erythrocytes. Furthermore, these cells did not appear to have surface immunoglobulins or complement receptors.