Core Facilities

flow cytometry Core Facility

Temple University has a state-of-the-art Flow Cytometry Facility for the measurement of physical and chemical properties of cells or other biological particles.  This method uses a combination of laser light scatter and fluorescence detection. A growing number of fluorescent probes and dyes have been developed to permit a large variety of applications including immunophenotyping, intracellular cytokine detection, DNA content, apoptosis, membrane integrity, cell proliferation, and intracellular pH.

The Flow Cytometry Facility is located in room 220 of the Allied Health Building on the Health Sciences Campus.  Equipment available for analysis includes FACScan and FACSCalibur, as well as a FACSAria for advanced analysis and/or cell sorting.

Flow cytometry is the measurement of physical and/or chemical characteristics of large populations of single cells or other biological particles in a fluid stream passing through the path of laser beams.  An extended function of flow cytometry is cell sorting. Cell sorters are capable of separating cells or other particles according to one or more user-specified properties into tubes or plates. In recent years flow cytometry has been developing rapidly and is used extensively in all fields of biological science because of its speed, accuracy, and varied applications.

Flow cytometry measures a large quantity of individual particles moving in a fluid stream through the path of one or more laser beams. The light scattered from these particles is directed to photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) and a forward scatter detector (usually a photodiode) to be converted into an electronic signal. Forward scatter (FSC), or light scattered in the forward direction, roughly corresponds to relative size. Side scatter (SSC), or orthogonally scattered light, reflects information about the relative internal and external complexity of a cell or particle. In addition to those two morphological parameters, several kinds of fluorescence can be measured per cell/particle simultaneously. Relative intensity of specific fluorescence on or in a cell/particle is representative of a physical or chemical characteristic.

The Temple University Flow Cytometry Core Facility has increased capacity for flow cytometric operations, including cell sorting and multiparametric cellular analysis of up to 8-colors on their BD FACSAria instrument. Users can simultaneously sort up to 4 populations of live cells into tubes or multiwell plates, and use the latest technology of polychromatic flow to increase the amount of correlative data from single samples.

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