title: Is there a difference between T- and B-lymphocyte morphology?
abstract: We characterize T- and B-lymphocytes from several donors, determining cell diameter, ratio of nucleus to cell diameter, and refractive index of the nucleus and cytoplasm for each individual cell. We measure light-scattering profiles with a scanning flow cytometer and invert the signals using a coated sphere as an optical model of the cell and by relying on a global optimization technique. The main difference in morphology of T- and B-lymphocytes is found to be the larger mean diameters of the latter. However, the difference is smaller than the natural biological variability of a single cell. We propose nuclear inhomogeneity as a possible reason for the deviation of measured light-scattering profiles from real lymphocytes from those obtained from the coated sphere model.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Chemical Kinetics and Combustion, Siberian Branch RAS, Institutskaya 3, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia.
authors.forename: Dmitry I
authors.initials: DI
authors.lastname: Strokotov
authors.forename: Maxim A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Yurkin
authors.forename: Konstantin V
authors.initials: KV
authors.lastname: Gilev
authors.forename: Dirk R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: van Bockstaele
authors.forename: Alfons G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Hoekstra
authors.forename: Nikolay B
authors.initials: NB
authors.lastname: Rubtsov
authors.forename: Valeri P
authors.initials: VP
authors.lastname: Maltsev
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001402:B-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology*; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D002467:Cell Nucleus; D048430:Cell Shape; D048429:Cell Size; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D006801:Humans; D008027:Light; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal; D008954:Models, Biological; D012031:Refractometry; D012542:Scattering, Radiation; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology*