Confusing Immunology Acronyms Defined

Avoid these common acronym mistakes:

PBL vs. PBMC

PBL stands for peripheral blood lymphocytes (or leukocytes).

PBMC stands for peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

Astarte Biologics uses PBMC because it more accurately describes our products, which contain monocytes in addition to lymphocytes.

FBS vs. FCS

FBS stands for fetal bovine serum

FCS stands for for fetal calf serum.

These terms refer to the same thing and can be used interchangeably. Both are used for in vitro cell cultures because they contain a high level of growth factors.

Bovine calf serum (BCS), however, is different in that it does not contain the same level of growth factors.

TLR vs. TCR

TLR stands for toll-like receptor.

TCR stands for T cell receptor.

Toll-like receptors are proteins found on the membranes of sentinel cells which recognize outside microbes and signal to initiate an innate immune response.

T cell receptors are much different. TCRs are found on the surface of T cells and bind to antigen peptides. This is ket to activating T cells to become helper CD4+ or cytotoxic CD8+.

TMB vs. TME

TMB stands for tumor mutation burden.

TME stands for tumor microenvironment.

TMB is the measurement of the number of mutations in a tumor and is being considered as a biomarker to determine if immunotherapy is right for a particular patient.

TME is a general term for the environment surrounding a tumor, which includes blood vessels, immune cells, fibroblasts, and the extracellular matrix. The tumor and its microenvironment impact one another.

IT vs. IMT vs IO

IMT is the accepted abbreviation for immunotherapy. Avoid using IT — which can be confused with information technology — and IO — which more specifically refers to immuno-oncology, a type of immunotherapy specific to cancer.

This post originally appeared on the Astarte Biologics blog and has been modified for Patch.