Bioluminescent assay for human lymphocyte blast transformation.

One of the basic tests of in vitro evaluation of immune cell functional activity is a proliferative response of lymphocytes on the action of external stimuli such as mitogenic lectines, antigens, etc. We compared two methods used to assess the lymphocyte functional status. (1) [3H]thymidine incorporation and (2) bioluminescence for determination of intracellular ATP in blast cells. Comparison has been done for healthy donors and patients with proven low immunological status. The proposed bioluminescent method for evaluation of the proliferative response was shown to be sensitive enough for diagnostic purposes. This method allows one to process a large number of samples at the same time and correlates highly with the radionuclide test use hazardous radioactive materials.