Bio-Rad Introduces a Simple Way to Assess the Viability of Cells for Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting that is Compatible with Fixation

Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. has announced the launch of VivaFix™ Cell Viability Assays, a family of reagents that provide a simple way to identify dead cells in a sample. When stained with VivaFix Dyes, dead cells show at least a 100-fold increase in fluorescence intensity over live cells with no significant loss of fluorescence upon fixation, leading to more reliable and consistent cell viability assessment.

Excluding dead cells is critical to the success of cell sorting and flow cytometry experiments, as dead cells can generate a nonspecific fluorescent signal and lead to inaccurate and unreliable sorting or interpretation of data. VivaFix Dyes can be used to assess the viability of cells because they permeate the compromised plasma membrane of dying cells, interacting with intracellular proteins, and then becoming trapped within the cell. As a result, dying cells acquire a brighter fluorescence than live cells, allowing the live and dead cell populations to be easily distinguished. Unlike traditional dyes, VivaFix Dyes are unaffected by fixation procedures, making them the optimal choice when working with fixed biohazardous samples.

Bio-Rad’s VivaFix Cell Viability Assays are available in eight colors from purple to red, making it easy to integrate them into any multicolor experiment.