In the Winter of 2001, the Becton-Dickinson LSR was the only bench top available with a UV emitting Helium-Cadmium laser. It was purchased and installed during the Summer of 2001. It is equipped with BD CellQuest pro software which is familiar to many investigators who use the instrument unassisted. This instrument is capable of analyzing a six color experiment. Four of the colors are acquired with 488 nm Argon excitation, with the remaining two colors acquired with Helium-Cadmium excitation.

Dual Excitation Sources:

1. 15mW air cooled Argon Ion Laser tuned to 488nm: Used to excite Fluoroscein (FITC), Phycoerythrin (PE), PE-Cy5 (Cychrome/Tricolor), PE-Texas Red (ECD/Red 613), Red 670, Rhodamine 123, Propidium Iodide (PI), Acridine Orange, and other compounds.



2. 8mW air cooled Helium-Cadmium laser emitting light at 325nm: Especially useful to measure calcium flux with Indo-1 AM ester. This laser can also be used to excite DNA specific dyes such as Hoechst and DAPI.

Helpful Suggestions: If cells are to be analyzed on this instrument, it is best that the concentration of cells/particles be around 1-5 million cells/ml. It is recommended that the cells be put in Falcon 352052 12 x 75 mm round bottom polystyrene tubes with a minimum volume of 500 µl. Many 12 x 75 mm tubes will not work on this instrument, so if you are not sure of your tubes, test them out before setting up your experiment.

An analysis worksheet (PDF format) must be filled out for every analysis performed on this instrument by RRC-FCS personel. If you acquire/analyze the data yourself, this step may not be necessary.