The mysterious case of missing lymphocytes: a cautionary tale of inter-institutional variability in outcomes of lung dissociation protocols.

Rigor and reproducibility are vital to scientific advancement. It is unclear whether a protocol optimized for tissue dissociation in one institution performs well universally. Here, we share our brand-new lab's experience with inter-institutional variability that led to the discovery that a protocol optimized for murine lung dissociation at Boston University (BU) fails to reproduce similar CD4 T cell, CD8 T cell, and B cell outcomes at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (U-M).