An analysis of phytohemagglutinin lymphoblastogenesis in whole blood.

A population of 80 defined normal people ranging in age from 20 to 62 years were used to define a dose response curve in whole blood phytohemagglutinin blastogenesis of lymphocytes. Maximum stimulation occurred at four days of incubation and 18 hours of pulse labeling with tritiated thymidine using 50 micrograms per milliliter of phytohemagglutinin and 1 microcurie of tritiated thymidine. An analysis of variants indicates a statistically significant trend of reduction of disintegrations per minute per milliliter with advancing age. Likewise, there was an extremely significant difference between measurements performed in the morning and late in the afternoon. Measurements referred to sex and sequential testing were not shown to be significant. Therefore, whole blood phytohemagglutinin blastogenesis may be meaningfully performed and interpreted using nonparametric statistics and the raw blastogenesis of a standard amount of peripheral whole blood, provided that the remainder of the test conditions are rigidly controlled.