A question of PI or DAPI

From: Tara McDonald (T.Mcdonald@centenary.usyd.edu.AU)
Date: Mon Apr 29 2002 - 17:18:30 EST


To the flow list,

A colleague of mine asked kindly if I could post this question on her behalf.

Dear All,

We are trying to determine DNA content of cells (sperm) from an
animal that only produces a few hundred at at time.  At this stage we
are using the Propidium Iodide method using chick erythrocyte nuclei
(CEN) as the internal standard.  The difficulty is that we can not
determine the nuclei number with a haemaocytometer and have just tried
to reduce the number of CEN.  As a result from run to run we do not
have exactly the same number of nuclei and the data differ.  I expect
this is because of the relationship  between PI and nuclei with
staining differing among trials.  When we did this experiment many
years ago with a UV source and DAPI as the stain we did not seem to
have this problem.  The  reason that we went to fluorescence is that
we no longer had a UV flow cytotmeter.  So my question is-  should we
give up trying to use PI and go back DAPI in the hopes that we can
accomplish what we need to do and if we can find a UV machine.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Best wishes

Maria Byrne


Cheers,
Tara McDonald


********************************************************
Tara McDonald (BSc. Hons)
Flow Cytometry Facility
Centenary Institute of Cancer Medicine and Cell Biology
Locked Bag No. 6
NEWTOWN  NSW  2042
AUSTRALIA
Tel: 612 9565 6140
Fax: 612 9565 6105
********************************************************



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