| Capillary flow is a cytometric method where cells or beads are directly aspirated from the sample to the analysis region without the use of sheath fluid and hydrodynamic focusing. As an alternative to traditional flow cytometers, capillary flow-based instruments have several important advantages; minimal waste volume, direct cell or bead volumetric measurement, and simplified fluidics. Recently, Guava Technologies has pioneered the use of capillary flow in its line of personal flow cytometers. The current performance level of capillary flow cytometers is acceptable for a vast majority of applications across the life sciences. However, there are a few applications where improved performance may be required.
The resolution and sensitivity of a flow cytometer depend on the interaction between the microfluidics, optics and electronics. For instruments based on capillary flow, the design of the capillary dominates the performance of the optic and fluidic components. Through extensive modeling we have designed a novel capillary that dramatically improves instrument performance by reducing the coefficient of variation (CV). The new capillary design can be readily fabricated using standard techniques. This performance improvement is made without any sacrifice in sensitivity.
We present theoretical details and experimental results of a new capillary design for Guava Technology platforms. We show that CVs <3% can readily be attained using chicken egg nucleocytes and Jurkat cells stained with propidium iodide.
With this significant improvement, capillary flow cytometers can have resolution and sensitivity approaching that of traditional sheath fluid cytometers. |
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