Fluorochrome Faceoff

Congratulations! We’ve made it to the end of the Fluorochrome Faceoff games. Throughout this competition, we have highlighted some key fluorochrome characteristics that should be considered when selecting fluorochromes for flow cytometry panels.

As you can see, not all fluorochromes are created equal. Some are bright, some are dim; some are excited by many lasers, some are excited by only one or two; some work well for intracellular staining, some do not; and so on. For example, the StarBright™ Dyes are generally bright with unique spectral profiles but are not available on intracellular markers. The NovaFluor™ Dyes generally have clean spillover profiles but tend to be dimmer and have nonspecific background staining. PE and PerCP tandem dyes have cross laser excitation that limits their utility in higher parameter flow cytometry panels. In comparison, the BD Horizon RealYellow™ and BD Horizon RealBlue™ Dyes generally perform well across all categories measured in this competition. In the chart below, we have summarized the overall performance of the various families of dyes that competed in this Fluorochrome Faceoff.