Effect of culturing on the human lymphocyte locomotion response to casein, C5a, and fMet-Leu-Phe

Cultured and noncultured human peripheral blood monocyte-depleted lymphocytes were studied concurrently to determine the effect of culturing on lymphocyte locomotion in response to different chemokinetic (fMet-Leu-Phe and casein) and chemotactic factors (C5a). This study demonstrates that culturing enhances lymphocyte locomotion as measured by the absolute distance migrated, but does not alter the ability of these cells to elicit a chemotactic or chemokinetic response. Furthermore, when lymphocyte locomotion is expressed as a migration index (difference between migration in response to a locomotor stimulus and that achieved in medium alone) the magnitude of the chemotactic or chemokinetic response observed was similar with both cultured and noncultured lymphocytes. We conclude from this study that culturing lymphocytes prior to the in vitro locomotion assay is not a prerequisite to measure chemotaxis, but only increases the distance that lymphocytes migrate.