Combined System Improves Cell Analysis

A new system that combines imaging and flow cytometry provides a new approach to working with cells in suspension, improving the ability to generate and quantify digital cell images, including non-adherent cells, the most important being various types of cells in blood.

The majority of systems for imaging and analyzing cells work with adherent cells: cells that grow naturally on solid surfaces such as glass slides, cover slips, and multiwell culture plates. Flow cytometry and most forms of digital cell analysis depend on the use of fluorescent probes that identify molecules in, or on, the target cell.

Microscopy offers very detailed information about individual cell structures whereas flow cytometry offers very detailed information about cell populations. The ImageStream system from Amnis Corporation (Seattle, WA, USA) has combined these two technologies into a single instrument platform. A six channel charged-couple device (CCD) camera and time-delay integration (TDI) technology allow cells moving in the flow stream to be imaged for almost 1,000 times longer than a snapshot with no loss of resolution.

A unique spectral decomposition element complements the TDI. The result is that for each cell analyzed, six simultaneous images are generated: brightfield, darkfield, and up to four fluorescent images. This imagery can then be analyzed using the ImageScreen's Ideas software package, which provides a link between the microscopy and flow cytometry technologies.

The technology can be used to study nuclear dislocation, to evaluate mechanisms of action of antibody-based therapeutics, to characterize cells in order to evaluate disease states, and to differentiate between apoptotic cells and necrotic cells.




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