Flow Cytometry Tools for the Study of B Cell Biology

Supporting B cell research

B cells, one of the components of the adaptive immune system, play an important role in the humoral immune response by secreting antibodies that neutralize the antigens released by invading pathogens.  They also play an important part in the generation of long-term immunological memory by acting as professional antigen-presenting cells for T cells. Perturbation in B cell development and function results in autoimmune diseases, malignancies and immunodeficiency disorders. So the understanding of B cells and their biology is crucial to the development of therapies and vaccines.

Flow cytometry in B cell research

Over the years, flow cytometry has played a key role in enabling the understanding of B cells by allowing the study of the development, characterisation and phenotyping of B cell subsets. As a leader in flow cytometry, BD Biosciences is a key provider of solutions for B cell research. Our offering includes:

• Antibodies targeting a range of markers from the cell surface to transcription factors, that allow a comprehensive analysis of B cell development pathways and immune functions.
• Antibodies and buffer solutions for the detection of intracellular components.
• Novel, high-performance fluorochromes that simplify panel design and allow for the detection of more parameters than before.
• Innovative multi-omics technology to simultaneously investigate the expression of both proteins and mRNA in thousands of single cells in one experiment.

The B cell research brochure

This brochure illustrates how BD Biosciences supports the following areas in B cell research

• Cell surface marker analysis to define cell populations in heterogeneous samples.
• Bright fluorochromes to detect low expression antigens or rare cell populations.
• Intracellular marker analysis and specialised buffer for transcription factor analysis, phosphor-signalling proteins and cytokines.
• Multi-omic analysis using BD® AbSeq antibodies and targeted mRNA workflow to simultaneously interrogate proteins and mRNA transcripts.
• BD® Cytometric Bead Array (CBA) to analyse secreted cellular products like cytokines and immunoglobulins.

Download the “B cell research” brochure to get greater insight into the use of BD solutions for a variety of research questions concerning B cell development, characterisation of B cell subsets, B cell phenotyping, intracellular staining, multicolour flow cytometry, cytokine detection and fast multiplexed quantitation.