Modern Medical Laboratory Journal

MACS (Miltenyi Biotec, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany) is a cell separation technology based on the use of monoclonal antibody-conjugated magnetic beads.  After incubating beads with a cell suspension, the cells are passed through a column within a magnetic field. Cells carrying the magnetic beads are retained inside the column, which attracts even slightly magnetized cells, where they are adsorbed onto the column surface. The unbound cells are washed away. The bead-carrying cells are recovered by elution after turning off the magnetic field. The technique can be used both for enrichment of a desired cell type (positive selection) or for depletion of unwanted cells (negative selection). This separation system is quite flexible and can be very quick depending on the method of tagging the cells that is required. When only one labeling step is required to bind an antibody to the magnetic particle, i.e., if the cells can be directly attached via the antibody, then the entire separation may take as little as 30 min. However, it may not be possible to bind the cells and the beads directly, and an intermediary antibody, either biotinylated or fluorochrome-bound, for example, might be required instead.
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