Immunophenotyping

Excerpt

Immunophenotyping is a technique that couples specific antibodies to fluorescent compounds to measure specific protein expression within a cell population. The protein expression is used to identify and categorize the tagged cells. It is often used to measure CD4-T cell counts when attempting to study specific immunodeficiency disorders and immune-related diseases. Immunophenotyping is a type of flow cytometry testing in which the scattered light signals pick up the chosen fluorescent compounds to report the existence and expression of a target cell protein.

The ability of flow cytometry to determine the presence or absence of cell-surface markers serves as the basis of immunophenotyping. General targets such as CD56 can determine the level of natural killer cells, or more specific targets, such as CD45R combined with CD31, can explore T-cell subpopulations when attempting to narrow down categories of immunodeficiencies. Immunophenotyping is a strong diagnostic tool that can be used in a wide variety of leukemias and immunodeficiency disorders. Immunophenotyping can also be used to further define cancer cell lines by exposing the presence or absence of cancer cell markers that correlate with different degrees of severity.