High-speed cell sorting: a tenfold increase in sorting rate

Three significant engineering improvements in our high-speed cell sorting equipment (a fluid system capable of operating at pressures in excess of 1.4 MPa, a low-turbulence nozzle to produce a stable jet and droplet, and an electronics package able to analyze and sort more than 20,000 particles per second) greatly reduce the time needed to accumulate usable samples of uncommon cells or subcellular particles. The sorted particles or cells are not damaged by the sorting process, even at the highest speed. Research applications include the purification of bulk quantities of chromosomes of a single type for gene mapping, the production of recombinant DNA libraries, and the concentration of variant peripheral blood cells for study and evaluation