tissue dispersion was centrifuged at 1200 rpm at 4 °C for 10 min. The
supernatant was discarded and the pellet was resuspended in 3 ml of
RBC lysing containing 0,83% NH
4
Cl in 100 mM Tris buffer (pH 7,4) and
kept at room temperature for 3 min. The cells were washed three
times with the RPMI-1640 and
fi
nally suspended in 1 ml of complete
media. Viability of cells was performed using the trypan blue exclusion
method (
Abuharfeil et al., 2001
). Spleen cell phenotyping was done as
previously described (
Kubosaki et al., 2008
). Splenocyte cell suspension
in RPMI-1640 (1 × 10
6
cells/ml) was washed with PBS and incubated
with anti-CD3, anti-CD4 and anti-CD8 antibodies according to
manufacturer's instruction. Cell subtypes were determined using BD
FACS Vantage
™
fl
ow cytometer. The absolute number of cells in each
spleen was determined by multiplying differential ratios of these sub-
types by the total spleen cell contents.