comparison of two flow cytometric methods for detection of human invariant natural killer t cells (inkt)

background: invariant natural killer cells (inkt) are an important immunoregulatory t cell subset. currently several flow cytometry-based approaches exist for the identifi-cation of inkt cells, which rely on using the 6b11 monoclonal antibody or a combina-tion of anti-vα24 and anti-vβ11 antibodies. objective: the aim of this study was to compare the ability of two flow cytometry-based methods for detecting the frequency of circulating inkt cells. methods: the frequency of inkt cells was detected in the pe-ripheral blood of 37 healthy adult donors by flow cytometry using the 6b11 antibody or a combination of anti-vα24 and anti-vβ11 antibodies. results: the frequency of inkt cells detected by 6b11 antibody or by combination of anti-vα24 and anti-vβ11 anti-bodies was significantly different (0.54% vs. 0.31%, respectively, p