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Immune cell phenotyping and functional analysis are used to characterize immune cell types, activation states, cytokine responses, and biological functions. Through approaches including flow cytometry, antibodies, fluorescent probes, cytokine detection, and functional assays, immune cells can be systematically evaluated from cellular phenotypes to functional responses.
1.1 Flow Cytometry: Immune Cell Marker Panel
Flow cytometry is a key technology for immune cell phenotyping analysis. By using fluorescently labeled antibodies, multiple surface and intracellular markers can be simultaneously detected, enabling the identification of immune cell types, subpopulations, and functional states, including activation and exhaustion states.
| Immune Cell / State | Common Markers |
| T cells | CD3, CD4, CD8 |
| Treg cells | CD4, CD25, FOXP3 |
| NK cells | CD56, CD16 |
| B cells | CD19, CD20 |
| Macrophages | CD68, CD163, CD206 |
| Dendritic cells (DCs) | CD11c, HLA-DR |
| T-cell activation | CD25, CD69 |
| T-cell exhaustion | PD-1, TIM-3, LAG-3, TIGIT |
Antibody product links
1.2 Cytokine Detection
Cytokines are important indicators for evaluating immune cell activation, inflammation, and immune regulatory states. They can be analyzed at different levels, including secreted cytokine levels, protein expression, and gene expression, using approaches such as ELISA, TR-FRET, multiplex cytokine assays, intracellular cytokine staining (ICS), Western blot, and qPCR.
Among these methods, ELISA and Multiplex Cytokine Assays are primarily used to measure cytokine secretion levels. Intracellular cytokine staining (ICS), combined with flow cytometry, enables identification of which specific immune cell populations produce cytokines. qPCR and Western blot are used to analyze cytokine-related gene expression and protein expression, respectively.
Learn more about our TR-FRET assay kits
Learn more about our Western blot product series
Learn more about our qPCR product series
Learn more about our intracellular cytokine staining (ICS) antibodies
1.3 Immune Cell Functional Assays
Immune cell functional assays are used to evaluate the biological activities of immune cells, including cytotoxicity, phagocytosis, proliferation, migration, chemotaxis, cytokine secretion, ROS production, and degranulation.
| Function | Common Assays |
| Cytotoxicity | Cytotoxicity assay |
| Phagocytosis | Phagocytosis assay |
| Proliferation | EdU, Ki-67, CellTrace |
| Migration / Chemotaxis | Transwell assay |
| Cytokine Secretion | ELISA, Multiplex cytokine assay |
| ROS Production | Fluorescent ROS probes |
| Degranulation | CD107a assay |
Learn more about our detection kits