Administrative supplement for the flow cytometry cell sorter purchase

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The COBRE Center for Targeted Therapeutics (CTT) at the University of South Carolina (UofSC) supports research that seeks to develop new and more effective classes of drugs against various diseases, by aiming these drugs at molecular and cellular targets that play a key role in the disease. FACS is a powerful method to collect and analyze various populations of cells after a drug treatment. Importantly, the cells can be from dissociated tissue or blood from animal models. The sorted populations can then be subjected to further analysis, such as gene expression or immune cell marker classification. The existing cell sorter in the CTT Microscopy and Flow Cytometry Core (MFCC) has been in service for 19 years and has several limitations relative to more modern instrumentation. It is difficult to change the source of input cells without causing contamination, and samples from dissociated almost always contaminates the instrument. Decontamination is difficult and is weakening the old fluidics system. The purpose of this proposal is to acquire funds to purchase a Sony SH800 Cell Sorter. This instrument uses disposable microfluids chips to eliminate the cross-contamination problem experienced with the older instrument. Also, it is much easier to operate and sorts cells faster compared to the previous generation. There are several investigators who have already expressed their support for this application. Their applications include characterizing infiltrating immune cells in an animal model of breast cancer; sorting cells from developing zebrafish to understand mechanisms of craniofacial development; sorting the microbiota and epithelial cells of colon in a mouse model of early onset colorectal cancer caused by antibiotic treatment; and a current CTT-target project, collect hematopoietic stem cells to use in transplantation studies. The addition of this instrument to the MFCC will expand the capability of the core and help the CTT to achieve its goals to provide needed resources to investigators developing targeted therapeutics.