Mixed leukocyte culture in uraemia

Summary The activities of mixed leucocyte cultures (MLC) prepared from pairs of healthy subjects were estimated from the uptake of tritiated thymidine by the cultures. It was confirmed that MLC is a practical method for detecting identical twins amongst siblings. MLC has not often been employed for donor selection for renal transplantation, mainly because of the impaired MLC reactivity of leukocytes from uraemic patients. An attempt was made to separate lymphocytes from uraemic leukocyte-rich plasma, which always has a high proportion of neutrophils. A lymphocyterich fraction of uraemic leukocytes has MLC reactivity comparable to that of non-uraemic leukocytes.