Advantages
- High speed analyses (100.000 events/seg) depending on the flow rate;
- Mesures single cells and a large number of cells;
- Simultaneous analysis multiple parameters;
- Identifies small populations;
- Quantification of flurescence intensities;
- Sorting of predefined cells populations (up to 70.000/s);
- Portable equipments.
Disadvantages
- Very expensive and sophisticated instruments;
- Requiries management by a highly trained specialist and on-going maintenance by service engineers.
- Complex instruments are prone to problems with the microfluidics system (blockages) and also require warm-up, laser calibration and cleaning for each use.
- Needs single cell particule;
- Tissue structure is lost;
- Litle information on intra-celular distributions.
Reference: Davey,H. and Kell, D.(1996) Flow cytometry and cell sorting of heterogeneous microbial populations: the importance of single-cell analyses. Microbiol. Rev.60(4):641.
http://bloodjournal.hematologylibrary.org/content/87/12/4925.full.pdf
http://www.bio.umass.edu/micro/immunology/facs542/facsprin.htm#advdis http://www.selectscience.net/products/cyflow-counter---ultracompact-portable-flow-cytometer/?prodID=85103