Rapid Cell Count (in vivo) - (Nov/27/2009 )

Hello

i'm looking for a method to count cells (HeLa, NIH..) in vivo, i.e. i would like to take only an aliquot of the culture, analyze them and know how many are in the aliquot. Cause there are a lot of samples which i have to process at the same time, i would highly appreciate if its a really easy and rapid method, because if its going too long then an error can occur or precision isnt given anymore, respectively.

Thanks & Cheers, wish you nice weekend

FACS?

...or perhaps something like the Invitrogen Countess or Beckmann Coulter X-Cell.

Hi, bob1, can you tell me if those (Invitrogen and Beckmann) work fine? Since i'm looking for a automated cell counter and I don't want to waste my money. Thanks!

They both work OK. The countess is basically a hemocytometer, so small volumes required and you have to load each specialist chamber individually and I'm not sure if you can re-use the chambers. The X cell requires a minimum of 0.5 ml/sample and has a minimum number of cells per ml before it will give accurate results (and do any calculations you set it to do). The cups for this can be washed and re-used but the reagents are very expensive, though basically they are just trypan blue, isopropanol wash, a detergent wash (probably PBS or TBS with triton or tween) and something else which I can't remember (last used it over 4 years ago).

Thanks a lot Bob1!