CellTrace™ Far Red & CellTracker™ Deep Red

Abstract

Long term monitoring of live cells in vitro or in vivo presents considerable challenges.  Fluorescent tracers are used as one of the most common methods.  However, fluorescent molecules usually are limited by cytotoxicity and/or lack of persistence within live cells over sufficient time periods. In this study, we evaluated our newly developed cell tracing/tracking reagents, CellTrac Far Red and CellTracker Deep Red, as novel red laser-excitable fluorescent dyes for flow cytometry and live cell imaging applications. These dyes cross the plasma membrane and covalently bind proteins inside cells, where the stable, well-retained fluorescent label offers a consistent, reliable fluorescent signal without affecting morphology or physiology and also exhibiting low cellular toxicity. CellTrace Far Red was demonstrated to be an excellent probe for cellular proliferation studies using flow cytometry, allowing measurement of up to eight generations of proliferating cells. CellTracker Deep Red was shown to be an excellent reagent for the study of cell movement, location and morphology by labeling and imaging live-cells with fluorescence microscopy. In addition, CellTracker Deep Red has excellent cell retention characteristics with bright fluorescence intensity even after 72 hours of cell staining, with signal retained after fixation, and can be multiplexed with other fluorescent dyes.