Isolation and Analysis of Blood- and Oral-Derived Neutrophils

Neutrophils are a type of white blood cell and a major component of the innate immune system. To study their function, they can be isolated from several parts of the body including blood and the oral cavity. Previous work suggests that blood-derived neutrophils function similar to oral neutrophils, with no major differences in quality. Our lab currently isolates neutrophils from blood, however we are working on adopting a new technique to isolate neutrophils from the oral cavity, as it may be a more efficient approach. The procedure for this technique involves an oral rinse, filtration and centrifugation followed up by phenotype analyses, which include comparison of the nuclear morphology, surface markers expression, and effector functions. Analytical tools such as flow cytometry, NDP.view, and Qpath can be used to assess these characteristics. If the blood and oral neutrophils feature similar characteristics this method may be adopted in the lab.