Fixable Viability Dyes for Flow Cytometry

These flow cytometry–based kits provide you with tools that are:

• Flexible—eight single-channel colors available for UV, 405, 488, 532, 561, or 633 nm lasers in three packaging sizes to match your experiment
• Specific—live and dead cells are clearly differentiated, even after fixation, allowing easy exclusion of dead cells that can impact the accuracy of your results
• Simple—fit into almost any staining and immunophenotyping protocol

See also viability assays for fluorescence imaging and microplates

LIVE/DEAD Fixable Dead Cell Stain Kits are based on the reaction of a fluorescent reactive dye with cellular proteins (amines). These dyes cannot penetrate live cell membranes, so only cell surface proteins are available to react with the dye, resulting in dim staining (Figure 1, LIVE). The reactive dye can permeate the damaged membranes of dead cells and stain both the interior and exterior amines, resulting more intense staining (Figure 1, DEAD).

The difference in fluorescence intensity between the live and dead cell populations is typically greater than 50-fold, thereby allowing complete, simultaneous discrimination between the two cell populations (Figure 2A). Additionally, the covalent attachment of the dyes to proteins allows preservation of discrimination of the live and dead cell populations following fixation with formaldehyde, commonly used for intracellular immunophenotyping and to inactivate pathogens (Figure 2B).

LIVE/DEAD Fixable Dead Cell Stain Sampler Kit

Not sure about which dye will suit your needs, or need even more flexibility in your experiments? Try our LIVE/DEAD Fixable Dead Cell Stain Sampler Kit, which contains enough of each color stain to run 40 tests.