I have a question about human macrophages cell surface markers.I want to stain the unpolarized human macrophages for flow cytometric sorting without permeabilizing them. It is because I need to recover the cells after knowing their population so I can infect them again.
I read many papers and they are mostly using CD68 intracellular marker which means that I need to fix and permeabilize the cells to stain them. In my case, I can't fix and permeabilize my cells so I can use them again. I would prefer a cell surface marker for macrophages. I want to ask if you have experience on this and if you know a human macrophage marker that I can use aside from CD68.
CD68 is a well-established marker for macrophages, particularly useful for identifying these cells in various tissues due to its high expression in macrophage lysosomes and endosomes. However, CD68 staining only can not distinguishing between unpolarized (M0), M1, M2... macrophages.
Basic panel for human macrophages might include: CD45 (pan-leukocyte marker) CD14 CD11b HLA-DR CD206 (M2)
you can stain the polarized human macrophages, M1 and M2 cell surface biomarkers, then unstained macrophages are unpolaried(M0)