Growth and Development of higher plants

Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorters (FACS) are flow cytometers that can sort cells. Flow cytometry is based on measuring certain physical and fluorescent characteristics of cells (size, granularity, GFP-expression, fluorochromes) as they pass in suspension one by one through a beam of laser light. When struck by the light, the cells emit scattered light and light coming from fluorescent emission(s) that are picked up by detectors. These signals are digitally converted into histograms and dotplots and provide information about the various cellular properties.
To sort particles or cells, the cytometer first needs to identify the cells of interest and then separates out the individual target cells. The capability to physically separate specific cell populations out of a heterogenous group of cells opens up a wide variety of possibilities. The researcher can sort his desired cells out of e.g. protoplasts from plants or transgenic cell lines. Once collected, the sorted cell populations can be used for functional analysis, gene expression, geno- or phenotyping, etc…
Recently P1 acquired an EPICS™ ALTRA™ FACS from Beckman Coulter, is a “state of the art” piece of equipment that allows to separate large numbers of specific cell populations. This can be done sterile, very fast and with high purity, recovery and yield.