Analysis of Cell Viability by Flow Cytometry (CAT#: STEM-CBT-0057-WXH)

Introduction

Cell viability can be measured to either exclude dead cells from analysis or to study the physiological state of cells. In both cases, fluorescent or non fluorescent dyes are available to distinguish dead and live cells.
Dead cells tend to non specifically bind many reagents. When immunophenotyping a cell population it is always useful to remove dead cells from acquired data to avoid false positive result.
Cell viability can be measured by changes in morphology or by changes in membrane permeability. Changes in morphology can be detected by forward and side scattered characteristics but this can be a crude measurement of viability. But, a more accurate way of measuring cell viability is by making use of cell exclusion of certain dyes or cell uptake and retention of others.