The objective of this study was to demonstrate the usefulness of an immunomagnetic method to purify subpopulations of milk somatic cells. The experiment was conducted on milk samples collected from healthy cows (n = 17) and from cows with clinical mastitis (n = 24) due to a Staphylococcus aureus natural infection. A two-step immunomagnetic purification was applied to simultaneously separate three somatic cell subpopulations from the same milk sample. Total RNA was extracted and qPCR was performed to determinate mRNA levels of innate immunity target genes in purified somatic cell subpopulations. Good quality and quantity of RNA allowed the reference gene analysis in each cell subpopulation. An up-regulation of the main genes involved in innate immune defence was detected in separated polymorphonuclear neutrophilic leucocytes-monocytes and lymphocytes of mastitic milk. These results and flow cytometric analysis suggest that the immunomagnetic purification is an efficient method for the isolation of the three populations from milk, allowing the cells to be studied separately.
Keywords: Mastitis; gene expression; innate immunity; magnetic separation; milk somatic cells.