Hi vanitha,

One question for you, do you want to assess tumor cell killing or phagocytosis? In a way both of these are same, but read out will be different. As for tumor cell killing you can label your tumor cells with triatiated thymidine before co-culture. Then read it the radioactivity scintillation counter. And for phagocytos is you label your tumor cells with cholera toxin b with fitc for cholesterol and lipid rafts staining. Then look for fluoresence in macrophages following coculture.

Thank you so much for the reply. Actually, I wanted to assess the phagocytosis. Apart from the methods you mentioned here, is there any FACS-based assays that I can perform for this?

Dear Vanitha,

I think that a good option would be an antibody labeling of tumor cells with a biotin conjugate and to use as a 2nd step pHrodo® Red Avidin (Fluorogenic pH Sensor). After phagocytosis you should obtain a bright red fluorescence indicating a low pH in the endolysosomes. For detection, you can use fluorescence microscopy or flow cytometry.

http://www.lifetechnologies.com/order/catalog/product/P35362

In addition to Josefs suggestion you can label the target cells and the macrophages in different colors For instanse DII and DIO, following co incubation you can see merged populations that are the result of phagocytosis

Thank u so much for your replies. I'll try to carry out these procedures.