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Bio-Rad offers a broad range of easy-to-use and versatile cell viability assays for assessing the cell health of fixed and unfixed cells in flow cytometry and cell sorting experiments.

Detecting Apoptosis

Apoptosis, a programmed cell death mechanism, is an essential process in embryogenesis and development. The process is also critical for ensuring an organism’s health by removing aberrant or damaged cells.

VivaFix™ Cell Viability Assays enable researchers to accurately discriminate between live and dead cells in fixed or unfixed samples by cell staining prior to flow cytometry, cell sorting and microscopy.

It is critical to understand the degree of cell death in any flow cytometry assay and exclude those cells from the analysis.

While some assays utilize antibodies to study cell health, proliferation, cell cycle or apoptosis, other types of experiments can rely on non-antibody based methods of assessment, often called non-antibody chemical probes. These are reagents that localize to an organelle or indicate health based on chemical characteristics like hydrophobicity, charge, size and enzymatic activation.

The ReadiDrop™ 7-aminoactinomycin D (7-AAD) cell viability assay is designed as a ready-to-use 7-AAD solution, which binds double-stranded DNA with a high-affinity intercalation between GC base pairs.

PureBlu™ Nuclear Staining Dyes are designed to specifically stain the nuclei of cells in fixed and unfixed samples for fluorescence microscopy and cell imaging applications

Reagents in Flow Cytometry, Microscopy and ELISA

Assays and dyes to determine your cell viability

The easy-to-use cell viability assay range offers a choice of assessing the cell health of fixed and unfixed cells and the versatility to measure the viability of cells in Flow Cytometry, Microscopy and ELISA.

Apoptosis, a form of programed cell death, is directed by activated caspases. Caspases are cysteine proteases that can cleave other proteins, and upon activation, create a positive-feedback cascade, which ensures the cell will undergo apoptosis.

Commonly used in flow cytometry experiments for excluding dead cells, the propidium iodide solution enters a compromised cell and binds to double-stranded DNA/RNA by intercalating between base pairs.