Small angle light scattering of bioparticles. IV. Spleen cells and liver nuclei

Small angle light scattering distributions were measured for four polystyrene latices ranging in size from 6 to 14 μm in diameter. Similar measurements were made with suspensions of mouse spleen cells and mouse liver nuclei which had been separated by gradient centrifugation. The results indicated that whereas the Airy treatment of the scattering data proved to be an excellent approximation of the stated diameters of the latices, an approximation of the Rayleigh-Debye theory was found to be in closer agreement with the size of the bioparticles as measured with an optical micrometer. The angular scattering was also compared with Fraunhofer diffraction curves and found to agree only in the extreme forward region out to approximately 2 °. This investigation emphasizes the potential value of these methods to studies of cell suspensions.