Hello everyone!
I am currently working with a colleague on analyzing the changes in relative cell composition of the immune compartment in the neonatal lung. We are currently stuck on being unable to identify more than 20% of CD3+ cells from whole lung homogenates of 14 days old black/6 mouse pups. We see various percentages of CD4+, CD4+ CD25+ and CD8+, which summed together constitute this 20%, but we have no idea about what the other 80% are. The full gating strategy for these cells is quite simple, as they are CD3+ CD45+. Does anybody have any idea what are we looking at?
Thanks in advance for everyone's time and interest!
Any chance you grabbed the thymus of your neonatal mouse? Just a wild thought, but it would fit...:)
Greg
@Greg I I'd exclude that, because I'm especially careful as to remove it before I even isolate the lungs.. but even if a fragment of thymus would end up in the final preparation, could it account for such a disproportionate percentage of cells?
I was thinking about NKT cells, but they do not constitue 80% of the CD3+ cell population. Maybe add CD56 and see if they are positive for the same.