Environmental monitoring using imaging flow cytometry

Researchers have options when it comes to monitoring environmental samples.

While imaging flow cytometry was primarily designed for biomedical research applications, it has tremendous flexibility for unconventional applications, one being environmental monitoring. Investigators have used these instruments to identify pollen, algae, microplastics, fungal spores, bacteria (including cyanobacteria), and particulate matter in our air, food, and water.

Traditional microscopy is still the gold standard for these kinds of applications, but the manual, time-intensive nature of sampling creates limitations for a large number of samples as well as types of measurements. Traditional flow cytometry, in comparison, provides fast and sensitive object measurements, yet it does not have the visual feedback needed for accurate identification of microscopic objects.

Imaging flow cytometry overcomes both of these platforms’ challenges and provides qualitative, high-resolution image data, capturing confocal quality images at a pace of several thousand individual objects per second. Along with the brightfield image, there are 10 fluorescence channels that further object identification, either from autofluorescence that the objects naturally display or through dyes we can add to help aid identification.

For more information on these as well as other applications, please contact the Fralin Life Sciences Institute's Flow Cytometry Lab Manager Melissa Makris.