Re: Gluteraldehyde autofluorescence quenching

Dave Coder (dave@nucleus.immunol.washington.edu)
Mon, 8 Aug 94 16:37:55 -0700

There are several issues:

1. do you need to use glutaraldehyde as a fixative?
2. what do you need to measure?
3. if #2, and it's other fluorochromes, then can you use fluorochromes that
fluorescence away from glutaraldehyde fluorescence? That is, dyes the fluoresce
beyond 600nm?

To expand,

1. there are other fixatives that will work just fine for flow cytometry.
Para-formaldehyde has much less autofluorescence; alcohols such as MeOH or EtOH work
well with many cell types.

But if the tissue is always fixed with glutaraldehyde and you have no choice, there
are other strategies.

3. if no other fluorochromes are to be used, then crystal violet may quench the
glutaraldehyde fluoresce. It can be used to quench FITC surface fluorescence while
permitting cytoplasmic FITC fluorescence.

3. if using antibodies, then phycoerythrin (PE) or better, PE-Cy5 conjugates, will
fluoresce beyond the typical glutaraldehyde fluorescence range. In general,
red-emitting dyes are the ones of choice for the problem.

Dave Coder
Univ. of Washington

Begin forwarded message:

Date: Fri, 05 Aug 94 09:01:24 PST
From: "Susan D. DEMAGGIO" <SDDEMAGG@uci.edu>
Subject: Gluteraldehyde autofluorescence quenching

I have been asked by a researcher to see if I can find a way
to quench autofluorescence of gluteraldehyde - or get around
it. Does anyone have any suggestions for us? THANKS

Sue DeMaggio
UC Irvine


Home Page Table of Contents Sponsors Web Sites
CD ROM Vol 2 was produced by staff at the Purdue University Cytometry Laboratories and distributed free of charge as an educational service to the cytometry community. If you have any comments please direct them to Dr. J. Paul Robinson, Professor & Director, PUCL, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907. Phone:(317) 494-0757; FAX (317) 494-0517; Web http://www.cyto.purdue.edu EMAIL robinson@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu