Microfluorimetry

Microfluorimetry is an adaption of fluorimetry for studying the biochemical and biophysical properties of cells by using microscopy to image cell components tagged with fluorescent molecules. It is a type of microphotometry that gives a quantitative measure of the qualitative nature of fluorescent measurement and therefore, allows for definitive results that would have been previously indiscernible to the naked eye. Microfluorimetry has uses for many different fields including cell biology, microbiology, immunology, cell cycle analysis and "flow karyotyping" of cells. In flow karotyping, isolated metaphase chromosomes are stained and measured in a flow microfluorometer. Fluorescent staining of chromosomes can also give distribution about the relative frequency of occurrence and the chromosomal DNA content of the measured chromosomes. This technique allows for karyotyping at higher speeds than with previous methods and was shown to be accurate using Chinese hamster chromosomes. Flow microfluorimetry (FMF) can also be used to determine different populations of cells using fluorescent markers with small cell samples. The markers used for measurement in flow microfluorimetry are made up of fluorescent antigens or DNA binding agents. It allows for the accurate measure of an antibody reacting with an antigen. Flow microfluorimetry is also used in pharmaceutical research to determine cell type, protein and DNA expression, cell cycle, and other properties of a cell during drug treatment. For example, microfluorimetry is used in neurons to compare the effects of neurotoxins on both calcium ion concentration and mitochondrial membrane potential in individual cells. Microfluorimetry can also be used as a method to distinguish different microorganisms from one another by analyzing and comparing the DNA content of each cell. This same concept can also be applied to distinguish between cell types using a suitable fluorescent dye which varies depending on purpose and is a critical technique in modern cell biology and genomics.