Immune Function Assays
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The increasing interest in immunotoxicology as a subtopic of toxicol- ogy acknowledges the growing recognition that the immune
system and immunocompetence per se
may be a sensitive and perhaps early indica- tor of toxicity. Indeed, accumulating evidence based on human and exper- imental
animal studies now link exposure to a variety of drugs and chemical agents with various immunotoxic processes, including immu-
nosuppression and hypersensitization (1
,2
). The primary objective of this chapter is to describe a minimum battery of standardized techniques that allows the routine
assessment of potentially immunotoxic compounds (3
,4
). The chapter is divided into three main sections: the first covers humoral immunity, namely the plaque assay; the second
is concerned with cell-mediated immunity and covers in vitro T-cell mitogenicity; the third covers the mixed lymphocyte assay
and in vitro cytotoxicity.
