The information on this page is particularly important. Please familiarize yourself with it, even if you have been using this facility for several years. We want to provide you with the best service possible. Your attention to this information should improve your flow cytometry experience.

Please fill out a copy of the experiment explanation sheet each time you bring samples to the facility. Every field is important. If you don't understand part of the form, please ask us about it. First time users of our facility: please provide us with an account number (with expiration date) that we can bill.

All samples should be brought in Falcon 2054 tubes (12 x 75 mm plastic). In general, cell densities should be 10⁶ to 10⁷/ml, and each tube should have a volume of 300 µL to 1 mL. See the protocols section for details. Most importantly, samples must be suspensions of individual cells. Clumps can compromise the quality of your results and/or put the instrument out of order.

All flow cytometry experiments require control tubes. Some protocols call for nothing more than one tube of unstained cells. Other protocols call for negative, positive, and compensation controls. Without the appropriate controls, your results will be meaningless.

Analyses usually take about one minute per tube; results are usually printed within 24 hours. Sorts are conducted at an interrogation  rate of roughly 1.5 x 10⁷ cells/hour. To anticipate the number of cells that you will recover, use the following formula as a rough guide.

The correction factor, typically in the neighborhood of 0.75, is included because the cytometer discards particles of which it is unsure.  It is also possible that some cells may adhere very tightly to the collection tubes or, alternatively, explode when hitting the tubes.  No flow cytometer ever achieves 100% recovery; this is especially true when conditions have been set to maximize purity.