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Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) uses fluorescent dyes to tag specific proteins on cells, allowing technicians to sort and extract them. FACS can be used for diagnostic medicine, research, and donor material processing, but requires expensive equipment and training. The process involves adding dyes to a sample, vibrating the container, passing a laser through the cell, and applying an electrical charge to sort cells into different bins. FACS can be used to count immune cells and generate graphs for research. It is a fast but expensive option for laboratory analysis.
Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) is a laboratory method that technicians can use to sort the cells in a sample. Using fluorescent dyes, they can tag specific proteins that might be present on some cells and pass them through a specialized device to extract those cells. This can be useful for a variety of tasks including diagnostic medicine, research and processing donor materials. The equipment can be expensive and special training is required, so not all labs offer this technology.
In this process, the technician begins by adding one or more dyes to the sample. Each dye is designed to bind to a specific protein. The sample is suspended in a container which vibrates at very high speed to force the cells out one at a time into a tube. A laser passes through the cell, with a detector on the other side to identify the scattering of light, which can be used to gather information about cell type and viability. Secondary detectors detect fluorescent emissions if the laser stimulates the dye.
The device applies an electrical charge to the cell based on the laser readout, then returns to the neutral position to make room for the next drop. Charged cells fall into different sorting bins. Using fluorescence-activated cell sorting, technicians can extract two or more cell types from a sample. Cells that don’t contain the proteins of interest can be shunted into other containers, along with empty droplets and dead cells, if the machine is set to sort through them simultaneously.
Technicians could use fluorescence-activated cell sorting for a task like counting immune cells. For example, the machine could label the T and B cells in a sample to provide information about their concentrations. Numerous graphs can be generated automatically with data from the fluorescence-triggered cell sorting procedure. These can be used in research or compared to samples from healthy patients to determine if a sample is abnormal.
This is one of several technologies available for laboratory analysis. The best option for a sample may depend on the type of data you need and limitations such as time and cost. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting can be extremely fast, which can be a distinct advantage for processing high-volume samples. The expense of the equipment can be a limitation in small laboratories with minimal resources that may not be able to make the technology pay for itself, in which case they can send samples if they need this test.
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