Interference in intracellular staining

From: Regina Harley (rharley@medicine.umaryland.edu)
Date: Wed May 03 2000 - 13:18:34 EST


Fellow Flowers-

We are doing intracellular cytokine staining for IFNg (after
PMA/Iono/Monensin) and are getting lovely results. Our problem is as
follows: when we do single color staining for IFNg, we get about 40%
positive. When we do a 4 color staining (CD4 FITC, CD8 PerCP, CD56 PE,
and IFNg APC) without incubating with labeled anti-CD4 and anti-CD8
during the stimulation portion of the experiment (which we usually do,
to address the problem of marked decreases in CD4 and CD8 staining due
to internalization of these markers during stimulation), we still get
about 40% staining with IFNg.   However, when we *do* add labeled CD4
and CD8 antibodies during the incubation (the remainder of the 4 color
staining with CD4 FITC, CD8 PerCP, CD56 PE and IFNg APC remaining
unchanged), the IFNg staining is significantly reduced (to 25-30%) . Has
anyone else had experience with this kind of interference and, if so,
what causes it and how did you solve it? Could anti-CD4 or anti-CD8
antibodies prevent anti-IFNg antibody binding?  Can quenching be
occurring? or is there some other explanation?

Thank you in advance for any thoughts on the matter-

Regina




Regina H. Harley, M.S.
Lab Supervisor - Flow Cytometry Facility
Center for Vaccine Development
University of Maryland - Baltimore
685 West Baltimore Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
(410) 706-7376    FAX: (410) 706-6205
rharley@medicine.umaryland.edu



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Mar 10 2001 - 19:31:18 EST