CELL DIFFERENTIATION BASED UPON PARTICLE UPTAKE

摘要

CELL DIFFERENTIATION BASED UPON PARTICLE UPTAKE This invention relates to a method of enumerating and isolating mutant cells and other variant cells in a cell population. A cell population is treated with a selective agent which allows nonvariant cells to remain phagocytic while rendering non-variant cells non-viable or non-phaqocytic. A suspension of discriminator particles, such as fluorescent or magnetic particles, is mixed and incubated with the cells. The variant cells take up the particles, while the non-variant cells do not take up the particles. The cell population is then analyzed to determine which cells have taken up discriminator particles.