Lu et al. [21] showed that light scatter measurements selleck screening library could not accurately quantify spermatozoa in human sperm cell concentrates.

The concept of using fluorescence as a threshold has been previously used in flow cytometry for the purposes of sorting minor subpopulations of cells [23] and for detection of rare events [35]. Fluorescence has also been combined with Coulter counter measurements, revealing size and permeability characteristics of cells and contributing to sorting viable cells from “waste” in suspension [13]. These examples demonstrate that although light scatter is an important parameter in flow cytometry, there are situations where fluorescence may be a more reliable indicator to identify cells. There is increasing interest in using flow cytometry as a quantitative method of cellular assessment in cryobiological studies [1], [4] and [11]. Cryobiology is the study of biological responses to low temperatures

and cryopreservation provides a means of preserving viability and function of cells and tissues for long periods. Assessment of cellular viability is used in cryobiology to measure the quality of individual samples, and optimize protocols to improve cryopreservation outcomes [5]. The plasma membrane is considered a primary site of cryoinjury [22] and [44], and in cryobiology membrane integrity is one of the most commonly-used methods to determine viability. Assays of plasma membrane integrity are simple, rapid assessments, FDA-approved Drug Library order primarily measured using dye exclusion methods [32], or combinations Interleukin-2 receptor of fluorescence [2],

[9], [24] and [46]. Cryopreservation studies have also used membrane integrity assays in conjunction with more specific assessments of cell function to understand cellular responses, including changes in metabolic function [5] and [31], DNA fragmentation [10], and mitochondrial polarization [47]. Cryobiological conditions induce significant alterations in cellular light scattering properties. A study by McGann et al. [24] exposing cells to cryobiological conditions showed that cooling to low temperatures and freezing cells resulted in low membrane integrity and decreased forward light scatter, under conditions that resulted in only a slight reduction in cell volume. These observations contradict the assumption that the forward light scatter is proportional to volume [17], and suggested that other properties of the cell surface and the cytoplasm may also contribute to the light scatter of cells [24]. The objective of this study was to demonstrate that gating strategies based on forward light scattering may introduce inaccuracies in experiments that require the identification of total cell populations, including not only live, but also dead and damaged cells.