[4][5] Development of antitumor therapeutic antibodies involves in vitro analysis of their effector functions including ability to trigger CDC to kill target cells.
Classical approach is to incubate antibodies with target cells and source of complement (serum).
When potentially suitable couple is found, crossmatch test is done to exclude that patient produces donor-specific anti-HLA antibodies, which could cause graft rejection.
Presence of dead cell (positive test) means that donor isn‘t suitable for this particular patient.
There are modifications available to increase test sensitivity including extension of minimal incubation time, adding antihuman globulin (AHG), removing unbound antibodies before adding complement, separation of T cell and B cell subset.