Antigen-specific responses assessment for the evaluation of Bordetella pertussis T cell immunity in humans

► The assessment of T cell responses is technically complex and usually performed on fresh PBMC. ► To identify simplified methods to assess pertussis specific T cell responses. ► High concordance in proliferation results was obtained when CFSE and blast read-outs were compared. ► Pertussis-specific assays performed on fresh PBMC were compared to frozen PBMC from the same donor. ► Results from fresh and frozen PBMC did not show significant difference. ► Adopting blast analysis and frozen PBMC, the possibility to test T cell responses is simplified.