Juergen Ostwald asks whether there are better markers for proliferating lymphocytes than Ki-67 and PCNA. Although I do not have a large-scale study to support this, I would expect that CD71, the transferrin receptor, which is a surface marker and hence easier to detect than Ki-67 or PCNA, would be as good. In my experience, stimulated lymphocytes which are found, based on elevated RNA content as detected by pyronin Y staining, to be in proliferative (G1A,G1B, S, G2, and M) phases of the cell cycle, invariably also express CD71, while quiescent cells (in G0, otherwise called G1Q), do not. Of course, the distinction between "positive" and "negative" with any of the activation markers is less clear than, say, discrimination of CD4+ and CD4- populations in peripheral blood lymphocytes. Ki-67, PCNA, and CD71 all have the advantage of persisting throughout the period of proliferation, as opposed to CD69, which appears early but typically disappears by 48 hours, while proliferation continues. -Howard
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