Surfactant in LSRII Sheath Buffer and Aria O-rings?

Hello Flowers,

I have two different questions I was hoping you all might be able to help me
with:

1) We have had quite a bit of residual air floating around our LSRIIs.	I was
told by a few different people, including a BD Service engineer, that a small
amount of surfactant in the sheath eliminates almost all the trouble we have
been experiencing with air bubbles.  Has anyone else tried this?  Does
surfactant kill most of the cells even at low concentrations since it is a
detergent?

2)  Am I the only one who now sees the Aria nozzle o-rings as a single use item?
 It seems that ever since we got the new amber style flow cell that once we take
out an o-ring that o-ring is pretty much finished.  We can actual see small
pieces of the o-ring shear off after removing the o-ring from the flow cell
after a single time.  It seems that the new flow cell is so sharp it cuts fine
pieces of the o-ring off every time it's installed.  Trying to replace a used
o-ring either leads to leaks or a pulsing stream (as part of the o-ring
flutters in and out of the stream).  We use to be able to take an o-ring in and
out of the flow cell many times before it became useless.  I've called BD and
have tried making various adjustments but it seems that we still only get a few
uses out of an o-ring.	Does anyone have a solution?

Thanks, any help is greatly appreciated.

Geoff-


Geoffrey Lyon
Biotechnology Associate I
FACS Facility
Yale University School of Medicine
TAC Building Rm-S613
300 Cedar Street

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