Cell research is at the forefront of biological study and synthetic biology for the production of many cell-derived products. As cell populations are extremely diverse, it is important to have the ability to physically separate a subset of cells of interest from the rest, this is what cell sorting does. The technology, FACS (fluorescence activated cell sorting) uses laminar flow to create a stream of single cells in single file within a stream of PBS. Each cell is identified using emitted fluorescence from molecular markers and sorted by using an electrical charge. Up to 4 subsets of cells may be either sorted to a separate collection tube, to a 96/384 plate well, the rest of the cells continuing to flow to a waste tank. Thus, pure populations are collected out of a mixture of cells for downstream processing – i.e., cultivation or analysis, such as single-cell DNA/RNA analysis.
