Experimental Design

When a researcher chooses to use flow cytometry to answer a scientific question, they first have to build a polychromatic panel that will take advantage of the power of the technology and experimental design. When we set up to use flow cytometry to answer a scientific question, we have to design a polychromatic panel that will allow us to identify the cells of interest – the target of the research.  To identify these cells, we need to build a panel that takes advantage of the relative brightness of the fluorochromes, the expression level of the different proteins on the cell,…

Histological stains that have an affinity for specific cellular components have been in use since at least the 1770s when John Hill used carmine to study tissues. Stain variety exploded during the 1800s with German dye manufacturers, such as BASF, developing aniline, methylene blue, and eosin. Eosin is still in use today with hematoxylin for H&E staining.  Since the advent of immunofluorescence and fluorescent protein tagging, which provides very specific labeling, dyes have been relegated to only the most basic imaging. If you don’t need specific proteins labeled, dyes can be a cheap and useful alternative offering simple sample preparation…