Functional Analysis of Tumor-Infiltrating Myeloid Cells by Flow Cytometry and Adoptive Transfer

The tumor-infiltrating myeloid cell compartment represents a heterogeneous population of broadly immunosuppressive cells that have been exploited by the tumor to support its growth. Their accumulation in tumor and secondary lymphoid tissue leads to the suppression of antitumor immune responses and is thus a target for therapeutic intervention. As it is known that the local cytokine milieu can dictate the functional programming of tumor-infiltrating myeloid cells, strategies have been devised to manipulate the tumor microenvironment (TME) to express a cytokine landscape more conducive to antitumor myeloid cell activity. To evaluate therapy-induced changes in tumor-infiltrating myeloid cells, this paper will outline the procedure to dissociate intradermal/subcutaneous tumor tissue from solid tumor-bearing mice in preparation for leukocyte recovery. Strategies for flow cytometric analysis will be provided to enable the identification of heterogeneous myeloid populations within isolated leukocytes and the characterization of unique myeloid phenotypes. Lastly, this paper will describe a means of purifying viable myeloid cells for functional assays and determining their therapeutic value in the context of adoptive transfer.