The Cytek Aurora is a 5 lasers spectral cytometer.
Spectral Flow Cytometry provides an alternative way to measure fluorescence emission. Contrary to conventional flow cytometry which measures a limited bandwidth of the emission spectrum of each fluorochrome, spectral flow cytometry measures the entire spectral signature emitted from each of the 5 lasers. This enables a much more in depth mapping of each fluorochrome/fluorescent protein emission and allows simultaneous detection and discrimination of fluorochromes that were not possible before.
The Aurora has 64 detectors which provides a signal per fluorochrome similar to the example below:
As another example, PE will give this signal :
There is two kind of signal or “signature” :
- Unique Signatures : The fluorochrome can be easily discriminated among others. Each unique signature can be read simultaneously on the machine. FITC and GFP, APC and Alexa Fluor 647 have unique signatures.
- Similar Signatures : These fluorochromes have signatures indistinguishable from one another. PE Texas Red and PE-CF594 have similar signatures. In that case, only one can be read at the same time.
You can find in the PDF the list of all the signatures in order to design the panel that you want.
If you are interested, please send an email to romain.bedel@unil.ch for more information.