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Live peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) can be frozen and thawed for later analyses by adding and removing a cryoprotectant, such as dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). Laboratories across the world use various procedures, but published evidence of optimal thawing procedures is scarce.PBMCs were separated from blood collected from healthy Danish blood donors, and stored at -80°C after adding of DMSO. The essential steps in the thawing procedure were modified and performance was evaluated by flow cytometry with respect to the percentage and total yield of viable PMBCs.The best-performing washing medium was Roswell Park Memorial Institute (RPMI) 1640 at 37°C with 20% fetal bovine serum. When using 10 mL washing medium in a 15-mL Falcon tube, samples should be centrifuged for at least 10 minutes at 500 g. We failed to detect any differences between the tested methods of mixing PBMCs with washing medium. Likewise, neither the thawing duration nor centrifugation temperature (20°C and 37°C) had any effect. PBMCs could be incubated (rested) for up to eight hours in a 37°C 5% CO2 incubator without affecting cell counts, but incubating PBMCs for 16 hours significantly decreased viability and recovery. In general, high viability was not necessarily associated with high recovery.Changing the thawing procedure significantly impacted PBMC viability and live cell recovery. Evaluating both viability and live PBMC recovery are necessary to evaluate method performance. Investigation of differential loss of PBMC subtypes and phenotypic changes during thawing and incubation requires further evaluation.

The vascular disrupting agent combretastatin A-4 disodium phosphate (CA4P) induces fluctuations in peripheral blood neutrophil concentration. Because neutrophils have the potential to induce both vascular damage and angiogenesis we analyzed neutrophil involvement in the anti-tumoral effects of CA4P in C3H mammary carcinomas in CDF1 mice and in SCCVII squamous cell carcinomas in C3H/HeN mice. Flow cytometry analyses of peripheral blood before and up to 144 h after CA4P administration (25 and 250 mg/kg) revealed a decrease 1 h after treatment, followed by an early (3-6 h) and a late (>72 h) increase in the granulocyte concentration. We suggest that the early increase (3-6 h) in granulocyte concentration was caused by the initial decrease at 1 h and found that the late increase was associated with tumor size, and hence independent of CA4P. No alterations in neutrophil infiltration into the C3H tumor after CA4P treatment (25 and 250 mg/kg) were found. Correspondingly, neutrophil depletion in vivo, using an anti-neutrophil antibody, followed by CA4P treatment (25 mg/kg) did not increase the necrotic fraction in C3H tumors significantly. However, by increasing the CA4P dose to 250 mg/kg we found a significant increase of 359% in necrotic fraction when compared to neutrophil-depleted mice; in mice with no neutrophil depletion CA4P induced an 89% change indicating that the presence of neutrophils reduced the effect of CA4P. In contrast, neither CA4P nor 1A8 affected the necrotic fraction in the SCCVII tumors significantly. Hence, we suggest that the initial decrease in granulocyte concentration was caused by non-tumor-specific recruitment of neutrophils and that neutrophils may attenuate CA4P-mediated anti-tumor effect in some tumor models.