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In a perfect world where detection electronic dead time is not limiting and
all sorted cells survive, sorting yield is related (in an exponential way) to
flow rate, # of drops deflected, drop drive frequency , as well as to the
frequency of the sorted cells. You can plot the equations for yourself and see
quite nicely that % yield goes down rapidly with flow rate. If you are
concerned with getting cells as quickly as possible but not worried about
yield, you can see that the sort rate of the "wanted" cells increases for a
while with flow rate, but reaches a maximum and then decreases as the flow
rate gets still faster. Pinkel and Stovel say that "if the desired
subpopulation is only a small fraction of the total, the maximum sorting rate
occurs when there is an average of one particle in the sequence of n droplets
to be deflected at each sort."
Although this article does not take into consideration all of the practical
problems that have been discussed recently, the actual results we get in
sorting can't get any better than the basic limitations inherent in the flow
sorting technique. My general impression is that purity is hardly ever a
problem -- but yield of precious cells can be a killer.
Alice Givan
Englert Cell Analysis Laboratory
Dartmouth Medical School
Lebanon, NH 03756, USA
tel: 603-650-7907
fax: 603-650-6130
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