Flow Cytometry

Buying guide

Prices run from EUR 1 to EUR 533.942. That is the widest spread of any assay on the site, because this page covers both the reagents a run consumes and the instrument it runs on. At the low end sit antibodies, counting supplies and consumables, items bought by the box and replaced often. At the high end sits a cell sorter, where the fluidics, the laser configuration and the droplet deflection hardware account for most of the cost of setting up this work. An analyser falls between the two, cheaper than a sorter because it reads without separating.

Condition is where this set differs from a general catalog. 95 percent of the listings are used. For a reagent that ceiling matters less, since antibodies turn over quickly and are bought for the current run. For an instrument it is the whole question: a used analyser or sorter needs its fluidics and optical alignment verified before it earns trust on a panel, and warranty on any individual unit is arranged in consultation for that specific listing. The catalogue spans 176 verified suppliers and distributors across 93 countries, so the same class of instrument often appears at several price points and conditions at once. Where a used unit lists well below a new one, that price difference is the clearest reason to consider it; weigh it against the specific listing and what the seller states about the instrument's history.

Types of Flow Cytometry

Flow cytometry runs as a sequence, not a single instrument, and the equipment it draws on spans several categories: the cytometer itself, the antibodies that label the cells, the counters and isolation tools that prepare the sample, and the liquid handling that moves it. What follows is the work in the order a lab does it, with the equipment each step needs and the places where one step constrains the next.

Preparing a single-cell suspension

Nothing downstream works on a clump. The flow cell admits one cell at a time, so a tissue or a confluent culture has to become a suspension of separated cells first, and the quality of that separation sets a ceiling on everything that follows. Cell isolation equipment does this work, whether by enzymatic dissociation, mechanical disaggregation, or magnetic selection of a target type. Where a run needs a pure starting population rather than a mixed one, isolation at this stage saves gating effort later. The listings for primary and cultured cells sit beside this step, because many protocols start from a known line rather than fresh tissue.

Once the cells are loose they are counted. A cell counter gives the concentration needed to normalise the sample to the density the cytometer expects, too dilute and a run takes forever, too dense and coincidence errors rise as two cells cross the laser together. Automated liquid handling enters here for any lab running plates rather than tubes, pipetting and diluting at a scale a technician cannot match by hand.

Which fluorophores can a given instrument read?

Staining is where the biology meets the optics. Flow cytometry antibodies carry the fluorophores that mark surface and intracellular targets, and the choice is not free: each fluorophore emits in a particular band, and the cytometer can only separate colours its lasers excite and its detectors resolve. A panel of a dozen markers needs an instrument with the laser lines and filter sets to match, which is the first constraint that reaches back from the hardware into the experiment design. The antibody listings here cover the conjugated reagents this step consumes.

Running the sample and sorting the output

The flow cytometer itself is the centre of the work. Sheath fluid focuses the stained suspension into a narrow stream, the laser interrogates each cell, and detectors read scatter and fluorescence to build a profile of the population. Analysers stop there, reading and recording. Sorters go further, deflecting droplets to physically separate cells by their profile, which is what a lab needs when the output of this step feeds a culture or a sequencing run rather than a chart. That distinction drives much of the price spread in the listings.

Where do the supporting categories fit?

Two sets of listings sit around the sequence rather than inside one step. Clinical laboratory equipment and the broader biotech and life sciences category carry instruments used in diagnostic and research settings where cytometry is one assay among many, and laboratory supplies cover the tubes, sheath fluid, and consumables every run depends on. They are not stages of the work, but no setup runs without them.