title: Imaging flow cytometry: coping with heterogeneity in biological systems.
abstract: Imaging flow cytometry (IFC) platforms combine features of flow cytometry and fluorescent microscopy with advances in data-processing algorithms. IFC allows multiparametric fluorescent and morphological analysis of thousands of cellular events and has the unique capability of identifying collected events by their real images. IFC allows the analysis of heterogeneous cell populations, where one of the cellular components has low expression (<0.03%) and can be described by Poisson distribution. With the help of IFC, one can address a critical question of statistical analysis of subcellular distribution of proteins in a cell. Here the authors review advantages of IFC in comparison with more traditional technologies, such as Western blotting and flow cytometry (FC), as well as new high-throughput fluorescent microscopy (HTFM), and discuss further developments of this novel analytical technique.
authors: Immune Disease Institute and Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Children's Hospital Boston and Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA. barteneva@idi.harvard.edu
authors: Natasha S
authors: NS
authors: Barteneva
authors: Elizaveta
authors: E
authors: Fasler-Kan
authors: Ivan A
authors: IA
authors: Vorobjev
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016477:Artifacts; D005434:Flow Cytometry / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D016012:Poisson Distribution; D015398:Signal Transduction