Abstract

In an investigation of the in vitro phagocytic and microbicidal function of granulocytes collected by filtration leucapheresis (FL) from 18 donors and by discontinuous flow centrifugation leucapheresis (DFC) from six donors, comparison was made with the function of granulocytes obtained from the same donors by venepuncture and density gradient centrifugation over Ficoll-Isopaque (FI). No significant impairment of the phagocytosis or killing of Candida guilliermondii by either FL- or DFC-granulocytes was observed. Although the ability of FL-granulocytes to phagocytose and kill Staphylococcus aureus did not differ significantly from the function of control FI-granulocytes, DFC-granulocytes were significantly less active.