1. Seed the cells in appropriate culture medium at ~10,000 cells per well in a BD Falcon™ 96-well Imaging Plate (Cat. No. 353219), and
culture overnight.
2. Remove the culture medium from the wells, and fix the cells by adding 100 µl of fresh 3.7% Formaldehyde in PBS or BD Cytofix™ fixation buffer (Cat. No. 554655) to each well and incubating for 10 minutes at room temperature (RT).
3. Remove the fixative from the wells, and permeabilize the cells by adding 100 µl of -20°C 90% methanol or -20°C BD™ Phosflow Perm Buffer III (Cat. No. 558050) to each well and incubating for 5 minutes at RT.
4. Remove the permeabilizer, and wash the wells twice with 100 μl of 1× PBS.
5. Remove the PBS, and block the cells by adding 100 µl of blocking buffer (3% FBS in 1× PBS) or BD Pharmingen™ Stain Buffer (FBS) (Cat. No. 554656) to each well and incubating for 30 minutes at RT.
6. Remove the blocking buffer, dilute the antibody conjugate 1:10 in blocking buffer or Stain Buffer (FBS), and stain the cells by adding 50 µl of the diluted antibody conjugate to each well and incubating for 1 hour at RT.
7. Remove the diluted antibody conjugate, and wash the wells three times with 100 μl of 1× PBS.
8. Remove the PBS, and counter-stain the nuclei by adding 100 μl of a 2 μg/ml solution of Hoechst 33342 (eg, Sigma-Aldrich Cat. No. B2261) in 1× PBS to each well at least 15 minutes before imaging.
9. View and analyze the cells on an appropriate imaging instrument. Recommended filters for the BD Pathway™ instruments are:
Instrument Excitation Emission Dichroic
BD Pathway 855 620/60 700/75 660 LP
BD Pathway 435 628/40 690/40 FF660