Objective

Flow cytometry is a widely-used and powerful tool for single-cell analysis – an essential ability for those studying heterogeneous cell populations. However, the need for cells to be in single-cell suspensions can result in challenging sample preparation. This can include trypsinization of adherent cells and/or centrifugation steps to remove staining reagents. Automating these steps can decrease the time at the bench while improving reproducibility by ensuring consistent treatment (i.e. trypsin incubations) across samples. In addition, moving to a plate-based format increases the potential sample throughput. Here we demonstrate how the Biomek i7 Automated Workstation was used to automate the complete cellular workflow for induction and analysis of apoptosis in two cancer lines. The Biomek Workstation utilized its HEPA-filtered enclosure to maintain cell sterility during manipulations. In addition, the i-Series instruments enable simple and direct integrations, including the CytoFLEX Flow Cytometer configured with a plate loader used here, without the need for additional robotic transports.