Apheresis products of the Amicus™ and the AS.TEC 204® cell separators are comparable with regard to dendritic cells derived from the mononuclear cell collection

Background  In this study, we investigated the quality of autologous mononuclear cells (MNC) collected with two different cell separators using standard MNC-apheresis procedure modalities. MNCs were purified by density gradient centrifugation and cultured according to standard protocols to generate dendritic cells (DC) and 1 × 107/ml immature DCs were pulsed with tumour lysate for 3 days and subsequently characterized by fluorescent-activated cell sorter analysis. Results  No difference was found in the monocyte content of either apheresis product (P = 0·07) and in the overall yield of MNCs (P = 0·7). Mature DCs as defined by their phenotype revealed also no significant difference: Amicus‘, 118 × 106 cells ± 91 vs. AS.TEC 204®, 128 × 106 cells ± 137 (P = 0·55), respectively, although the contamination with platelets (threefold) and red cells (twofold) was significantly higher in the AS.TEC 204 group (P < 0·05) than in the Amicus group. Conclusion  The Amicus and the AS.TEC 204 are equally capable in providing MNCs for the generation of DCs and the amount of concomitantly collected red cells and platelets had no impact on the final DC yield.