ViaFluor®  SE Cell Proliferation Kits use amine-reactive dyes to covalently label cells throughout the cell cytoplasm and intracellular compartments for fixable fluorescent staining. Cell proliferation dyes are commonly used to monitor cell division by flow cytometry. The dyes also can be used to stably label cells to image cell morphology, or to track cell populations in mixed co-culture experiments.

ViaFluor® SE Dyes for Cell Proliferation Tracking

ViaFluor®  SE dyes are membrane permeable compounds that are non-fluorescent until they enters viable cells, where the compound is hydrolyzed by cytoplasmic esterase enzymes to releases the fluorescent amine-reactive dye. The dyes then covalently react with amine groups on intracellular proteins, forming fluorescent conjugates that are retained in the cell, while excess unreacted dye is washed away.  Immediately after staining, a single, bright fluorescent population will be detected by flow cytometry. With each cell division, daughter cells inherit roughly half of the fluorescent label, allowing the number of cell divisions that occur after labeling to be detected by the appearance of successively dimmer fluorescent peaks on a flow cytometry histogram compared to cells analyzed immediately after staining.  Thus, cell proliferation dyes can be used to track multiple cell divisions of cells grown in culture or injected in vivo after labeling with the ViaFluor® SE dye.

The number of assays that can be performed per kit depends on the dye concentration used (see the product protocol for more information). When used at 1 uM to label 10⁶ cells in one mL, each dye vial can be used for 90-100 labelings.

Other Applications for ViaFluor® SE Dyes

ViaFluor® SE dyes also can be used for imaging cell morphology or identifying cells in co-culture by microscopy. Because the staining is non-toxic and well-retained, it can be used for imaging  live cells over time. See our Tech Tip: Using ViaFluor® SE Stains for Cell Tracing and Co-Culture.

All three ViaFluor® SE dyes can stain gram-positive bacteria, but not gram-negative bacteria. ViaFluor® CFSE stains the cytoplasm in yeast, but ViaFluor® 405 & ViaFluor® 488 stain the yeast cell periphery. See our Cellular Stains Table for more information on how our dyes stain various organisms.