The Flow Cytometry Core provides NHGRI researchers access to high-quality flow cytometry services. Flow cytometry can be used to analyze, identify, and isolate subpopulations of cells from mixed populations and to classify cells that may represent less than 0.1% of the total sample. This technology can be used to analyze any cell type as well as many subcellular particles that can be prepared as a single-cell suspension. Multiple parameters on thousands of cells per second can be measured simultaneously, including cell size, cell complexity, and surface and intracellular markers. Current projects include isolation of human neuronal nuclei for gene profile expression studies, many zebrafish hematopoiesis projects as well as active involvement in a variety of applications including the isolation of tissue and blood cell populations for animal transplantation experiments; isolation of cell sub-populations for analyses of functional cellular properties and gene transcription profiles, as well as high throughput screening of enhancer regions. The index-sorting feature available on our sorters enables investigators to sort cells into single wells of plates, and easily identify them on plots, in statistics views, and in a detailed results file. These features allow the rapid isolation and characterization of single cells for use in single cell RNA-seq. In the last two years we have been able to purchase two state of the art analyzers and a new sorter in the past two years. Future needs of the researchers in NHGRI will be assessed before replacing our fifteen year old BD FACS ARIA sorter. The Core is equipped with one BD FACS ARIA Fusion enclosed in a biosafety cabinet - five laser, 21 color instrument, two four laser BDFACSArias; one thirteen color Beckman Coulter CyotFLEX S analyzer, one 21 color Beckman Coulter CytoFLEX LX analyze; and a Miltenyi Auto MACS for magnetic cell separation. Core personnel are available for training, development, and project execution. The Flow Cytometry Core is currently staffed by Stacie Anderson (Core Director, 100% effort, GMBB), and Martha Kirby (100% effort, GMBB). These investigators run the sorters, maintain the analyzers and other equipment and provide expert advice on design and execution of experiments.
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