Service concept and projects

Flow cytometry

• Complex multicolor flow cytometric analysis of cell populations based on light scatter & fluorescent light intensities from fluorescent protein content & fluorochromes

FACS

• Full-service sorting of (rare) populations out of heterogeneous samples. Sorts are used e.g. for cell cloning, cell enrichment, single cell isolation, sequencing and high purity bulk sorts for other downstream applications
• High-recovery and indexed single-cell sorting for e.g. sequencing.

Scientific project support

• Providing scientists with expertise in flow cytometric techniques required in their research projects
• Review and discussing published protocols that are to be established for specific experiments in house

Training

• Providing our researchers with advice and on demand training sessions in the use of flow cytometry, instrument operation and post-acquisition data analysis and specific topics of interest (cell cycle analysis etc.)

Own research

• Developing novel flow cytometric techniques to meet the institute’s diverse scientific needs and constant improvement of measurement quality

Projects (selection)

• High throughput sorting of embryonic stem (ES) cells and cell lines as a preparative step in the analysis of genome regulatory activity during tissue development and cell differentiation
• Sorting for establishment of clonal cell lines carrying fluorescent protein-tagged genome-edited genes
• Large-scale sorting of ES cells and cell lines carrying multiple fluorescence reporter constructs for e.g. RNAseq
• Single-cell sorting for single cell quantitative genome analysis, transcriptome, CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing and in vitro studies
• Cell cycle analysis and high throughput sorting for RNAseq
• Nuclei sorting for sequencing

In conjunction with Toralf Kaiser from the flow cytometry core facility of the Deutsches Rheuma-Forschungszentrum Berlin, we are jointly developing novel techniques for flow cytometer setup and characterisation which will largely impact on the quality of flow cytometric data and thus cell sorting.

Publication policy

Our reward will be in a paper‘s acknowledgement or co-authorship depending on the extent of service and input from our side. Any helpful intellectual input from our scientific members into the project during planning, execution and analysis of the experiments justifies a co-authorship on a manuscript that contains data generated in our facility.