Research Equipment

- Combination of 3 lasers: blue laser with a wavelength of 488 nm, purple laser with a wavelength of 405 nm and yellow-green laser with a wavelength of 561 nm, 8 colors in a combination of 2-2-4 (2B2V4YG).
- samples in a quartz cuvette
- possibility of sorting into tubes, culture plates (6, 24, 48, 96 -well), PCR 96-well plates or microscope slides
- four-way sorting

Purpose

The FACSMelody sorter enables the counting and separation of bacteria labeled with different fluorochromes and the separation of bacteria of different phenotypes, such as separation of cells according to their expression of reporter genes. With the FACSMelody sorter, bacteria/viruses stained with fluorescent dyes can be separated and counted in environmental samples. FACSMelody allows the separation of 4 different channels (4-way sorting) at once allowing us to continue experiments with separate subpopulations of cells whose viability is unaffected as cells are not exposed to suboptimal conditions for too long due to the speed of such separation. Separation thus enables experiments in which we determine the properties of cell subpopulations or experiments in which we want to expose the separated cell subpopulation to new experimental conditions and sterile separation is required. In our laboratory, experiments are underway on the experimental evolution of B. subtilis, in which a subpopulation of cells that have accepted DNA (and express specific fluorochrome) is separated from the parent population and further exposed to experimental evolution. We also study the stress response of bacteria in mixed biofilms, where two different types of bacteria in the biofilm are first sterile separated into two subpopulations using FACSMelody, and then further experiments are performed on the cells prepared in this way, e.g. we measure the degree of stress response triggered during co-incubation in an individual population.