Patent ID: 7449452

Claim:
A method for estimating an immunostimulant activity of a polysaccharide, which comprises: (i) obtaining a peripheral blood sample which contains peripheral blood mononuclear cells from a mammal; (ii) contacting a first portion of said blood sample with a detection reagent comprising a fluorescence-labeled immunostimulant polysaccharide, which contains a first polysaccharide moiety, to obtain a first fraction which comprises target peripheral blood mononuclear cells; (iii) measuring fluorescent intensity of said first fraction to determine the amount (B) of said target peripheral blood mononuclear cells bonded to said fluorescence-labeled immunostimulant polysaccharide; (iv) contacting a second portion of said blood sample with a reference reagent comprising a fluorescence-labeled polysaccharide, which contains a second polysaccharide moiety which is different from said first polysaccharide moiety, to obtain a second fraction which comprises target peripheral blood mononuclear cells; (v) measuring fluorescent intensity of said second fraction to determine the amount (A) of said target peripheral blood mononuclear cells bonded to said fluorescence-labeled polysaccharide; and (vi) correlating the difference (B−A) between the amounts (A) and (B) with the immunostimulant activity of said first polysaccharide moiety for said mammal.