Cell electrophoretic characterization of peripheral blood lymphocyte subpopulations enriched by rosette formation, from normal individuals and CLL patients.

Peripheral blood lymphocytes from healthy subjects and patients with chronic lymphatic leukemia (CLL) were isolated and their subpopulations enriched through formation of spontaneous rosettes with sheep or mouse red blood cells, respectively. Electrophoretic measurements were performed in unseparated as well as in fractionated cell populations. Normal blood lymphocytes showed two clearly distinguishable populations of different electrophoretic mobilities. After separation by SRBC rosette formation the rosette-forming cells could be identified as high mobility cells. CLL lymphocytes showed in most cases an unimodally distributed cytopherogram, the mean electrophoretic mobility being intermediate between the low and high mobility cells of control persons. After separation through mouse erythrocytes rosette formation these cells contained two cell fractions differing in their electrophoretic mobility: a fraction of slower mouse rosette-forming cells and a fraction of the non-MRFC which contained mainly cells of higher mobility that could be identified as enriched T cells. These both fractions showed unimodal distributions. This study shows that CLL lymphocyte subpopulations can be further characterized by surface charge density.