Isolation of large numbers of fully viable human neutrophils: a preparative technique using percoll density gradient centrifugation.

Techniques were developed for the isolation of human neutrophils from large volumes of human blood. This preparative procedure avoids exposure to Ficoll/Hypaque and offers a low cost alternative to centrifugal elutriation. First, leukocyte-enriched suspensions were obtained by treating buffy coats with 2% dextran. The leukocyte suspensions were then fractionated on three steps Percoll density gradients. The gradients were designed to carry large numbers of cells while maintaining resolution of the cell peaks. As a result, at least 320 X 10(6) leukocytes could be processed on a single 12 ml gradient. Extensive testing of the procedure showed that the purity of the neutrophil band was 96.5 +/- 3.16% (n = 50). The band contained 82.4 +/- 14.6% (n = 39) of the neutrophils applied to the gradient. Viability assays (bacterial killing, chemotaxis) demonstrated that neutrophils isolated on Percoll gradients were just as active as those harvested by centrifugal elutriation. Recovery data are presented and compared to the results obtained by others.