Mouse splenocyte cell sizes - Cell size range (May/02/2005 )

Hi,
does somebody know the size range of mouse splenocytes? I cultured a heterogenous population of mouse splenocytes and now I want to count them. Therefore I have to adjust the approximate cell size cause our cell counter wants to know it. Are there big differences in size between mouse and human splenocytes?
Thanx for help!!!!

I don't have an exact answer to your question .... but ... In the mouse spleen there are a huge number of different cell types of varying sizes and depending on how long and how you cultured them some may have differentiated ... when I run flow on disrupted spleen single cell suspension I get a wide range of size and granularity in a specific spread of FS vs SS.

There are lymphocytes (small), RBCs (small), granulocytes (larger), macrophages (large), stromal cells (varying) etc etc etc.

If you are using an automated CBC machine the human and the mouse will be slightly different sizes. You probably will get the correct WBC count but your differential will be off.

I would suggest you count using a hemacytometer.

Thanks for your reply. I also decided to count with the good old hematocytometer. I thought the automated counting would be more exactly but the big difference in cell sizes is a problem.

Good luck, just remember to lyse your RBCs (if you have any leftafter culturing) with acetic acid/trypan blue prior to counting or your counts will be way off (as lymphocytes are about the same size as RBCs).