(1263-D) Development and Evaluation of both an Automated Workflow and the BlueCatBio Blue®Plate Consumable for Flow Cytometry Sample Preparation

Abstract: Flow cytometry is an essential technique used to identify cell subsets that are critical in both the pre-clinical and clinical space. Equally as critical is the preparation of samples used for flow cytometric analysis. This process is often long, very hands-on, and contains many error-prone steps that may impact sample quality and, as a result, data quality. To this end, we have developed and are evaluating the use of an automated flow cytometry sample preparation workflow, in conjunction with testing a new flow cytometry sample preparation consumable, the Blue®Plate from BlueCatBio MA, Inc. Here, we detail our findings when we evaluated our automated flow cytometry workflow compared to a traditional manual flow cytometry workflow, while also incorporating the Blue®Plate into a traditional manual flow cytometry workflow. First, we demonstrate that our automated workflow very closely mimics the results of a manual flow cytometry workflow. Overall, our automated workflow is consistent with or surpasses our manual workflow in cell retention, cell viability, and identification of different cell subset populations. Additionally, we observed that the Blue®Plate reduced cellular debris compared to our automated and manual workflows, which resulted in a cleaner sample that was used for analysis. This reduction in debris may lead to increased staining resolution of cellular markers and warrants further investigation, as does its incorporation into our automated workflow.