Sort purity
Charles Sentman mtc (Charles.Sentman@mtc.ki.se)
Thu, 30 Mar 1995 12:21:09 +0200 (METDST)
I have found the discussion about sort purity quite interesting, but I
seem to be a little unclear on what is precisely meant by "purity".
Several people have mentioned that they can routinely achieve sort
purities of 98% to 99%. I am sure that this is possible under certain
circumstances. However, if they positive population to sort is rather small,
say 10% of the starting cell population, and the background staining with
secondary alone is 1%, then although the post sort analysis may indicate
that the sorted cells are 99% positive, isn't fair to say that the
purity is only 90%, since 10% of the potentially positive sorted cells
may be due to background staining of cells that are not truly "antigen
positive"? This, of course, is not a problem with the machine, but rather
with the staining procedure of the cells. Yet when these sorted cells are
used in some biological assay, whether there is 1% or 10%
contaminating cells will be extremely important. Perhaps some more
experienced flow people could clarify this for me and suggest ways to
decrease background staining.
Charles Sentman
Karolinska Institute, Stockholm
Charles.Sentman@mtc.ki.se
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