1. Flow cytometry in the evaluation of dermatology patients
- Author
-
Peter Heald and Shu Ling Yan
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,Skin Neoplasms ,medicine.diagnostic_test ,Intracellular pH ,Cell ,HIV Infections ,Dermatology ,DNA ,Cell sorting ,Biology ,Flow Cytometry ,Antigens, Differentiation ,Skin Diseases ,Epitope ,Flow cytometry ,Autoimmune Diseases ,Lymphoma, T-Cell, Cutaneous ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,medicine ,Humans ,Leukemia-Lymphoma, Adult T-Cell ,Electronic data ,Clone (B-cell biology) ,Cytometry - Abstract
Cytometry is the measurement of physical and/ or chemical characteristics of cells or other biologic particles. Flow cytometry (FCM) is the me asurement of these properties as the cells pass through the measuring apparatus in a fluid stream. FCM systems have five components: a laser light source, fluidics that allow the cells to stream single-file through the laser, optics that collect the light generated by the cells in the beam, photomultipliers that convert the light signals to electronic data, and the computer system that processes the data. 1,2 From its infancy in the 1960s in research laboratories, FCM has moved to the clinic with an astonishing array of applications. FCM has found a role in particle analysis (size distribution, refractility, concentration), cell sorting (cell enrichment, cell concentration, verification of analysis), oncology (cell classification, clone enumeration, proliferation rate, DNA quantitation), cell biology (DNA content, RNA content, chromosome karyotyping, protein content, enzyme activity, intracellular PH, membrane potential, viability, membrane fluidity), immunology (epitope density, epitope type, surface receptor proximity), 3 and, as discussed here, dermatology.
- Published
- 1991