Bioimaging
1. Seed the cells in appropriate culture medium at an appropriate cell density in a BD Falcon™ 96-well Imaging Plate (Cat. No. 353219), and
culture overnight to 48 hours.
2. Remove the culture medium from the wells, and wash (one to two times) with 100 μl of 1× PBS.
3. 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).
4. Remove the fixative from the wells, and wash the wells (one to two times) with 100 μl of 1× PBS.
5. Permeabilize the cells using either cold methanol (a), Triton™ X-100 (b), or Saponin (c):
a. Add 100 µl of -20°C 90% methanol or -20°C BD™ Phosflow Perm Buffer III (Cat. No. 558050) to each well and incubate for 5 minutes at RT.
b. Add 100 µl of 0.1% Triton™ X-100 to each well and incubate for 5 minutes at RT.
c. Add 100 µl of 1× Perm/Wash buffer (Cat. No. 554723) to each well and incubate for 15 to 30 minutes at RT. Continue to use 1× Perm/Wash buffer for all subsequent wash and dilutions steps.
6. Remove the permeabilization buffer from the wells, and wash one to two times with 100 μl of appropriate buffer (either 1× PBS or 1× Perm/Wash buffer, see step 5.c.).
7. Optional blocking step: Remove the wash buffers, and block the cells by adding 100 µl of blocking buffer BD Pharmingen™ Stain Buffer (FBS) (Cat. No. 554656) or 3% FBS in appropriate dilution buffer to each well and incubating for 15 to 30 minutes at RT.
8. Dilute the antibody to its optimal working concentration in appropriate dilution buffer. Titrate antibodies and second-step reagents to determine the optimal concentration.
9. Add 50 µl of diluted antibody per well and incubate for 60 minutes at RT. Incubate in the dark if using fluorescently labeled antibodies.
10. Remove the antibody, and wash the wells three times with 100 μl of wash buffer. An optional detergent wash (100 μl of 0.05% Tween in 1× PBS) can be included prior to the regular wash steps.
11. If the antibody being used is fluorescently labeled, then move to step 12. Otherwise, if using a purified unlabeled antibody, repeat steps 8 to 10 with a fluorescently labeled second-step reagent to detect the purified antibody.
12. After the final wash, 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.
13. 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
