Abstract
Summary
This report describes a phenomenon that may be a significant source of error in the data acquired from hemolytic plaque assays of lymphocyte cultures. The data show that background antibody in the normal-serum supplement of the culture medium does not actually support initiation of a vigorous primary-type plaque-forming cell (PFC) response to sheep erythrocytes (SE). Instead, the background antibody causes the development of numerous spurious lymphoid-cell-independent plaques (LCIP). In general agreement with the literature, primary-type rabbit spleen cell responses in vitro were low in culture media supplemented with fetal bovine serum, a serum which does not contain background antibodies to SE.
We thank Drs. P. Leder, M. Cashel, and S. G. Bradley for criticizing the manuscript and Ms. Catherine Kunkle for typing it.
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