Columbia Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting Core

Overview

Flow cytometry is an important tool in quantifying and phenotyping the cells that define pathways relevant to diabetes. Previously limited to the analysis of circulating immune cells, advances in cell extraction from tissues has allowed flow cytometry to expand its capabilities to the study of developmental, metabolic and signaling programs in a wide-variety of cell types.

The Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting Core represents a growing component of the Diabetes Research Center, as it addresses the research needs of a growing number of Diabetes Research Center investigators who study immunological, developmental, and metabolic aspects of diabetes. Created in 2010 in partnership with the Columbia Center for Translational Immunology and the Department of Medicine, the Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting Core helps investigators to quantify and phenotypically characterize cell populations that contribute to the metabolic, immunologic, and developmental programs of diabetes and its complications; and to purify populations of cells of relevance to diabetes and its complications. The Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting Core leverages advanced technologies in fluorescent imaging at the single cell resolution to support the analysis of many different cell types in both human and animal tissues, as well as humanized mouse models of Type 1 diabetes.

Goal

The goal of the Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting Core facility is to support the needs of Diabetes Research Center researchers in all aspects of analytic flow cytometry (cell surface markers, intracellular cytokines, transcription factors and phosphorylated signaling molecules), and with cell sorting services. Three analyzers (Canto II, Fortessa/HTS and LSR II; 3-6 lasers and 8-18 colors) and two Influx sorters (up to 15 colors and four sort outputs) are available to Diabetes Research Center investigators.

More details on the capabilities and configuration of the analyzers and sorter can be accessed from the Flow Cytometry Core.

Services

The Cytometry and Cell Sorting Core provides training and access to state-of-the-art flow cytometry for biomedical investigators at the Columbia University Medical Center. Among the many documented applications, characterization and quantification of cells for surface protein, cytokine, intracellular transcription factor and signaling molecules are the most common experiments performed in the flow cytometry core facility.