Deposition of human polymorphonuclear leucocytes on glass.

Abstract

THE phagocytic activity of human polymorphs has been examined by depositing the cells on glass coverslips and observing their behaviour under phase contrast1. The coverslips were first prepared for use by boiling in distilled water followed by soaking in glass-distilled water for 3 h and then drying after washing in two changes of absolute alcohol, but it was found that cells collected from the buffy layer of human blood made up within 1 h of venepuncture adhered poorly to the surface of such coverslips. In contrast, the cells adhered well to the surface of glass coverslips which were used without any treatment other than rubbing with a paper tissue, though the numbers adhering were somewhat variable. As the principal difference between untreated coverslips and those which had been boiled in water and washed with alcohol was likely to be the existence of a layer of an oily substance at the glass surface, a defined layer of a fatty acid was deposited on the coverslips by a modification of the method of Blodgett2.