Stimulation of irradiated human lymphocytes by different mitogens

A brief report is made on experiments with different subpopulations of human lymphocytes. The results suggest that lymphocytes stimulated with concanavalin A and phytohaemagglutinin have nearly the same cell cycle duration and a similar radiosensitivity. There were, however, marked differences between donors with respect to cell proliferation rates and minor ones with respect to the radiation response. It was concluded that 42 hours represents the culture time most appropriate to avoid interdonor variability in the cell cycle. Provided that cells were harvested at this time, it did not appear to matter whether PHA or Con A was used as the stimulant. (author)