Equipment
The Single Cell Facility provides access to four flow cytometry analyzers and six sorters.
Analyzers - are used for acquisition of analysis of data only. They can be operated by researchers themselves upon mandatory training. We have three BD Fortessa SORP and two BC Cytoflex S. All analyzers can be used for the analysis of BSL2 samples. To reserve such instruments please use our OpenIRIS booking system.
Sorters - are used for cell (particle) separation tasks.That includes for example the sorting of multiple cell populations or single cell deposits e.g. for cloning or single cell genomics. We have seven different cell sorter instruments: BD FACS Aria Fusion, BD FACS Aria III, BD FACSDiscover S8, BD FACSMelody, BC Cytoflex SRT, Sony SH800, and a Sony MA900. The Sony SH800, Sony MA900, BC Cytoflex SRT and the BD FACSMelody are user-operated sorter instruments, the others are available to the users in an operator-based service.
Our facility has three flow cytometry experts on staff. All of our sorters, except for the BD FACSMelody, are suitable to work with BSL2 samples. If you want to know more on how to make a reservation, follow the link to OpenIRIS or contact our staff.
Available laser lines on the different instruments
Each instruments is equipped with several lasers. To enable you to check which fluorochromes and their combinations can be analyzed on which machine, we list here the available excitation frequencies (wavelength of the lasers) in the table below. The panel (combination) of fluorochromes that you want to detect in yor sample, determines the choice of instrument and its optical configuration. If your unexperienced in designing your panel and chosing the right instrument, we highly recommend to contact our staff for avice prior to the setup of your experiment. Reservations can then be made through external pageIRIS by for operator assisted service through our staff based on availability of machines and personnel. To find out more details about each instrument's optical configuration, see the individual technical specifications below.
Optical filters
Filters are used to allow only specific wavelenght bands of the emission light of the labels to reach the individual detectors of the cytometer. With this spectral separation and mathematical compensation of spectral overlap the signal of each used fluorochrome label can be measured precicely. The used filters can be exchanged which allows to adapt the instrument configuration to the combination of used fluorochromes in a given sample. The following list shows Downloadthe optical filters that are available at the SCF (JPEG, 438 KB).
Quality control
To ensure that the complex configurations of our instruments are properly tuned to deliver consistent and reliable data we run regularly scheduled quality control checks on all flow cytometry analyzers and sorters.