PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Julie G. Burel
AU  - Mikhail Pomaznoy
AU  - Cecilia S. Lindestam Arlehamn
AU  - Daniela Weiskopf
AU  - Ricardo da Silva Antunes
AU  - Yunmin Jung
AU  - Mariana Babor
AU  - Veronique Schulten
AU  - Grégory Seumois
AU  - Jason A. Greenbaum
AU  - Sunil Premawansa
AU  - Gayani Premawansa
AU  - Ananda Wijewickrama
AU  - Dhammika Vidanagama
AU  - Bandu Gunasena
AU  - Rashmi Tippalagama
AU  - Aruna D. deSilva
AU  - Robert H. Gilman
AU  - Mayuko Saito
AU  - Randy Taplitz
AU  - Klaus Ley
AU  - Pandurangan Vijayanand
AU  - Alessandro Sette
AU  - Bjoern Peters
TI  - No cell is an island: circulating T cell:monocyte complexes are markers of immune perturbations
AID  - 10.1101/411553
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 411553
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/02/21/411553.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/02/21/411553.full
AB  - Our results highlight for the first time that a significant proportion of cell doublets in flow cytometry, previously believed to be the result of technical artefacts and thus ignored in data acquisition and analysis, are the result of true biological interaction between immune cells. In particular, we show that cell:cell doublets pairing a T cell and a monocyte can be directly isolated from human blood, and high resolution microscopy shows polarized distribution of LFA1/ICAM1 in many doublets, suggesting in vivo formation. Intriguingly, T cell:monocyte complex frequency and phenotype fluctuate with the onset of immune perturbations such as infection or immunization, reflecting expected polarization of immune responses. Overall these data suggest that cell doublets reflecting T cell-monocyte in vivo immune interactions can be detected in human blood and that the common approach in flow cytometry to avoid studying cell:cell complexes should be revisited.