A procedure for isolation and partial purification of guinea pig lung mast cells.

Pulmonary mast cells were obtained from guinea pig lung using a combination of enzymatic digestion of tissue, centrifugal elutriation, and density gradient centrifugation on Percoll. In the initial procedure, lung tissue was enzymatically digested with collagenase and elastase in four 30 min incubations. Typically, monodispersed cell suspensions contained 4% mast cells. Further purification of these lung mast cells using elutriation and Percoll gradients consistently yielded mast cells of 40-78% (mean 51%) purity. These cells were morphologically intact, viable and found to be functional as determined by histamine release evoked by antigen and anti-guinea pig IgG1 antibody.