Benchtop cytometers

Fig. 1.5. Three user-friendly benchtop cytometers (in alphabetical order). Top A Beckman Coulter XL . Middle A Becton Dickinson FACSCalibur. Bottom A Dako Galaxy, manufactured for Dako by Partec.

Although benchtop cytometers are less expensive than state-of-the-art instrumentation, they are still expensive. Therefore core facilities with shared instrumentation still provide for much of the current flow cytometric analysis. These shared facilities reflect a need by many for flow cytometric instrumentation, but also recognition of its high cost, its requirement for skilled maintenance and operation, and the fact that many users from many departments may each require less than full-time access. Such centralized facilities may have more than one cytometer. The trend now is to have one or more sophisticated instruments for specialized procedures accompanied by several bench-... 

Fig. 9.1. A sorting flow cytometer (MoFlo by Cytomation). The outward complexity of this instrument compared with benchtop cytometers (see Fig. 1.5) reflects the electronic controls necessary for sorting as well as the adaptability of research cytometers with regard to multiple lasers and to the filters and mirrors in the optical light path for multiparameter analysis.

Fig 3.7. Components on the optical bench of a generalized four-parameter flow cytometer. (The drop charging, the deflection plates, and the drops moving into separate test tubes apply only to sorting cytometers [see Chapter 9] and not to benchtop instruments.) Adapted from Becton Dickinson Immunocytometry Systems. 

These multi-analyte platforms (e.g., Luminex) consist of a benchtop flow cytometer/analyzer for the detection of cytokines captured onto microspheres ( beads ) with unique fluorescent intensities. The beads are covalently coupled to cytokine-specific antibodies so that cytokines present in biological fluids can be captured when mixed with the desired assortment of cytokine-specific beads. Detection antibodies carry the reporter molecule, phycoerythrin (PE), so that fluorescent signal is proportional to the amount of cytokine present in... 

Guava easyCyte 8HT Benchtop Flow Cytometer (MiUipore)... 

Gordon, K. M. Duckett, L. Daul, B. Petrie, H. X. A simple method for detecting up to five immunofluorescent parameters together with DNA staining for cell cycle or viability on a benchtop flow cytometer. J. Immunol. Methods 2003,275,113-121. 

---