CellLight™ Nucleus-GFP, BacMam 2.0 - FAQs

View additional product information for CellLight™ Nucleus-GFP, BacMam 2.0 - FAQs (C10602)

10 product FAQs found

How can I increase the transduction efficiency with the BacMam 2.0 reagents such as the the CellLight and Premo products?

Try varying particle-to-cell ratio (PPC), incubation volume, temperature and, cell density (if adherent cells are transduced). For adherent cells, we recommend a confluence of about 70%. Following the PPC, adjusting the volume is the next best parameter to change to optimize protein expression. If that doesn't work, you can also use the BacMam Enhancer Kit (Cat. No. B10107).

Find additional tips, troubleshooting help, and resources within our Cell Analysis Support Center.

Is there any way to preserve the CellLights labeling beyond 5 days?

Cells transduced with the CellLights reagents can be stored frozen for several months after transduction, without loss of expression.

Find additional tips, troubleshooting help, and resources within our Cell Analysis Support Center.

Are the CellLights products toxic to cells?

If the viral particles are used at the level we recommend, they are very well tolerated by cells.

Find additional tips, troubleshooting help, and resources within our Cell Analysis Support Center.

For how long will the CellLights products label my cells?

The BacMam 2.0 CellLights typically express for 5 days after transduction.

Find additional tips, troubleshooting help, and resources within our Cell Analysis Support Center.

What cell types can the CellLights products be used with?

The first generation BacMam reagents were shown to efficiently transduce over 90 cell types, including stable cell lines and primary cells. With BacMam 2.0, it is now possible to also efficiently transduce primary neurons and stem cells.

Find additional tips, troubleshooting help, and resources within our Cell Analysis Support Center.

What safety precautions need to be taken to work with the BacMam reagent?

Our BacMam constructs do not replicate in mammalian cells, making them Biosafety Level I (the lowest biosafety level). They can be handled with the standard precautions used for any cell-based reagents.

Find additional tips, troubleshooting help, and resources within our Cell Analysis Support Center.

I want to label the nuclei of live cells and track them over time. Can I use DAPI for this?

We do not recommend doing this. DAPI is considered to be a semi-permeant/impermeant nucleic acid stain. DAPI staining of live cells may be inconsistent. It is best used as a counterstain for fixed samples. Other cell permeable nucleic acid stains, such as Hoechst or the SYTO dyes may affect cellular function.

For mammalian cells, we recommend using the CellLight Nucleus transduction reagents, available in CFP, GFP and RFP. With these reagents, the cells are transduced overnight in a single labeling step and the next day the nuclei will fluoresce. The label may be retained for 3-5 days and should not affect cell function. Cytoplasmic cell tracking dyes such as the CellTracker dyes may also be used.

Find additional tips, troubleshooting help, and resources within our Cell Analysis Support Center.

Do CellLight BacMam 2.0 reagents work on all cell types?

BacMam delivery technology works with over 90 mammalian cell types. However, cells with hematopoietic origin do not show effective transduction with CellLight BacMam 2.0 reagents.

Find additional tips, troubleshooting help, and resources within our Cell Analysis Support Center.

I keep getting low transduction efficiency when using CellLight labeling reagents on my neurons. What can I do to improve the efficiency?

Neurons are more difficult to transduce than many other cells. The main way to improve transduction is to label with a higher number of particles per cell. For primary neurons, it can also help to transduce them at the time of plating rather than on established cultures. There can also be a slower onset of expression in neurons and peak expression often occurs on day 2-3 rather than 16 hours after transduction.

Find additional tips, troubleshooting help, and resources within our Cell Analysis Support Center.

I want to track my cells with a nucleic acid stain, like DAPI or Hoechst dye. Do you recommend this?

This is not recommended. When these stains bind to DNA and RNA, they may affect the normal function of the nucleic acids, disrupting transcription, as well as replication. Other reagents, such as CellTracker dyes or Qtracker reagents are more optimized for tracking without disrupting normal activity. If a nuclear label is still desired, though, and the cells are mammalian and non-hematopoietic, CellLight nuclear reagents can transiently transfect cells to express GFP or RFP on a nuclear-expressing protein for up to several days without affecting function.

Find additional tips, troubleshooting help, and resources within our Cell Tracing and Tracking Support Center.