Patent ID: 7351546

Claim:
A flow cytometric method for measuring dendritic cell function in whole blood, comprising: (a) contacting a whole blood sample with a dendritic cell activator; (b) adding to said sample a plurality of dendritic cell-distinguishing antibodies, a dendritic cell subsetting antibody that is an antibody specific for CD11c or an antibody specific for CD123, and at least one antibody specific for a dendritic cell surface marker indicative of activation, wherein said antibodies are fluorophore-conjugated; (c) lysing red blood cells in said sample; and then (d) flow cytometrically assaying said sample for binding of said antibody specific for said dendritic cell surface activation marker by dendritic cells of a dendritic cell subset, wherein the pattern of binding of the dendritic cell-distinguishing antibodies and the dendritic cell subsetting antibody identifies dendritic cells of the dendritic cell subset, and the level of binding of the antibody specific for a dendritic cell surface marker provides a measure of dendritic cell function.