I am looking to do some proliferation assays for t-cells, co-culturing them with DC’s. My plan is to isolate monocytes from PBMCs and differentiate them into DC’s for 7 days. I will then add my isolated T-cells to the DCs at a ratio of 10:1 and investigate the effects of compounds on T-cell proliferation. Could anyone tell me whether I should activate my t-cells first (with CD3/CD28 for around 7 days) or use freshly isolated T-cells?