O. Resina-pelfort et al., Effects of deflected droplet electrostatic cell sorting on the viability and exoproteolytic activity of bacterial cultures and marine bacterioplankton, SYST APPL M, 24(1), 2001, pp. 31-36
The cell-sorting capability of flow cytometers makes it possible to isolate
specific populations of cells with pre-defined cytometric characteristics.
A better knowledge of the biological effects of the sorting process is nec
essary for the future cell sorting applications. In this paper we report th
e effects of flow cy tometric sorting on bacterial viability and exoproteol
ytic activity (EPA) of bacterial cultures and marine bacterioplankton. Sort
ing bacterial cultures and bacterioplankton samples reduce viability as ass
essed by plate counts and produce variations in the exoproteolytic activity
. These effects indicate that deflected electrostatic sorting may significa
ntly alter the biological properties of the sorted bacteria.