Blood leukocytes and platelets can be used as a marker of overall bioenergetic health of an individual and so have the potential to monitor pathological processes and the impact of treatments. Here we describe a method to isolate and measure mitochondrial function and the oxidative burst in these cells.
Kramer, P. A., Chacko, B. K., Ravi, S., Johnson, M. S., Mitchell, T., Darley-Usmar, V. M. Bioenergetics and the Oxidative Burst: Protocols for the Isolation and Evaluation of Human Leukocytes and Platelets. J. Vis. Exp. (85), e51301, doi:10.3791/51301 (2014).