Description
About the Rhesus Monkey (Rhesus Macaque)
Rhesus macaques are one of the most commonly utilized non-human primates in biomedical research. They are employed in numerous research areas, such as immunology, neuroscience, oncology, infectious disease, and toxicology due to their physiology.
Application Summary for Rhesus Monkey PBMCs
Rhesus monkey PBMCs can be used for a wide variety of safety assessment and functional studies. They are commonly employed in pre-clinical settings to ensure biologics are not eliciting unwanted functions, such as cytokine release and toxicity. They are also used in many immunology-based applications, such as ELISPOT, cytokine production assays, and cytotoxicity assays to measure ADCC or CDC in response to biologics. In addition, rhesus monkey PBMCs can also be used in ex-vivo applications for cell population characterization.
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 rhesus PBMCs are cryopreserved carefully using iQ Biosciences’ cryopreservation protocol that ensures high viability (> 90%) after thawing.
Cells should be stored at < -120°C once they are received, such as within a liquid nitrogen tank (vapor phase).
Quality Control Process
All of our non-human primate donors have been tested for Herpes B virus, Simian Retrovirus (SRV), and tuberculosis. Additionally, we implement random sampling per lot to test for viability and cell counts to ensure they meet specifications, which are recorded on the Certificate of Analysis that is included with each shipment. Cell counts are obtained using a manual hemocytometer and then cross-referenced with an automated cell counter. Each lot is also characterized for unique cell populations by immunophenotyping, in which the results are also recorded on the Certificate of Analysis.
Figure 1. Flow profiles of T cells (CD3, CD4 gated on CD3+ population, and CD8 gated on CD3+ population), monocyte (CD14), B cell (CD20), and NK cell (CD56) populations in rhesus PBMCs. The specific immune cell subset and its percentage is listed on the top right of the flow profile. Briefly, rhesus PBMCs were stained with antibodies for CD3, CD4, CD8, CD14, CD20, and CD56, followed by flow cytometric analysis.