Description

About the Dunkin Hartley Guinea Pig

The Dunkin Hartley guinea pig is a commonly used outbred strain of guinea pig that is employed in a variety of preclinical research in immunology, virology, cardiology, metabolism, and arthritis. Response to tuberculosis is often studied in guinea pigs and more recently, immune cells isolated from guinea pigs have been frequently used to study B cell development and activation, T cell population characterization, and T cell responses.

Application Summary for Guinea Pig PBMCs

Guinea pig PBMCs can be used for a wide variety of immunology-based applications. In vitro immunoassays, such as proliferation, cytotoxicity, and cytokine release in response to stimulus, including antigens specifically from tuberculosis, are commonly performed with guinea pig PBMCs. Similarly, characterization of cell surface marker or mRNA transcriptional changes in PBMCs in response to stimulus can also be performed using guinea pig PBMCs.

Gamma delta (g/d) T cells, which is of particular interest to researchers currently, have been characterized in guinea pigs and may be a source of cells to study g/d T cell biology.

Isolation of PBMCs

Peripheral blood is obtained from responsible facilities that have many years of experience collecting samples. Since the facilities are local, the blood is quickly transported to iQ Bioscience’s laboratory for processing.

Once at our lab, PBMCs are isolated by performing density centrifugation with Ficoll, a high molecular weight sucrose solution, to remove red blood cells under sterile conditions. Depending on the species (human or non-human) of blood, either 1.077 or 1.084 g/ml Ficoll is used, resulting in a perfect layer of mononuclear cells that are separated from plasma, platelets, granulocytes, and erythrocytes. Additional quality control steps are taken to isolate and prepare PBMCs that ensure the highest viability for cryopreservation and downstream experimental applications.

Cryopreservation and Storage

Our guinea pig PBMCs are cryopreserved carefully using iQ Biosciences’ cryopreservation protocol that ensures high viability (> 80%) after thawing.

Cells should be stored at < -120°C once they are received, such as within a liquid nitrogen tank (vapor phase).