The BD FACS Aria IIIu cell sorter is a highly flexible flow cytometry platform that enables the identification and collection of cells from complex mixtures (spleen, bone marrow, blood, mixed cell cultures) at several pressures and speeds depending sample requirements.
The instrument has 15 fluorescent detectors, 2 of which are dedicated to fluorophores excited at 488 nm (blue), four at 561nm (yellow-green). three at red (633 nm), and 6 at violet (405 nm) wavelengths.
The instrument is housed inside a class II, A2 biosafety cabinet for sorting of BSL-2 samples such as lentiviral infected cell lines, bacteria and infected/non-infected human samples.
When preparing your cells, please refer to our page on Sample Preparation for Sorting and concentrate your samples according to the guidelines below.
| Instrument Specifications | |||||
| Sort Set-ups | |||||
| Nozzle (µM) | 70 | 85 | 100 | ||
| Pressure (PSI) | 70
(high) |
35
(medium) |
30
(medium) |
20
(low) |
|
| Cell Type | Splenocytes
Thymocytes PBMC whole blood bacteria yeast bone marrow |
B/T cell lines
Embryonic Stem Cells Transduced/Transfected spleen, thymus bone marrow (delicate) cells
|
Embryonic stem cells
Trophoblast stem cells Cultured primary cells |
Endothelial cells
All adherent cell lines Newly transfected cells Large delicate primary cells* |
|
| Cell Concentration** | 40 million/mL | 10 – 15 million/mL | 8 million/mL | 3-5 million/mL
(Bulk sorts) |
1 million/mL
(plate sorts) |
| Threshold Rate | 18 – 22 x 103 cells/sec | ~ 8,000 events/sec | ~6,000 events/sec | ~3,000 events/sec | ~500 – 1000
Events/sec |
| Optimal Injection speed*** | 20-35 µL/min | ||||
| Sample Injection and Collection Set-Up | |||
| Set-Up | Tubes | Sorting Pools | Operating Temperature |
| Injection | 12 x 75 mm (5mL)
15 (mL) conical |
Room Temperature
4 degrees 24 degrees 37 degrees |
|
| Collection | Eppendorf tubes
12 x 75 mm (5mL) |
4 – way sorting | Collection device is attached to variable temperature controlled water bath. |
| 15 mL conical | 2 – way sorting | ||
| Multi-well plates
(96, 48, 24, 6) Glass slides Chamber slides |
1-way sorting | Sorting into multi-well plates is performed at room temperature. | |
Notes:
* Large delicate cells may not always do well when sorted on the Aria. If cells are extremely fragile, consider speaking with an operator about sorting your samples with the BD Influx.
**Cell Concentration – values given are a maximum concentration – concentrations higher than this will require dilution and increased sorting time.
*** Injection speed is dependent on actual cell concentration. At 30 µL/min the instrument will finish 1mL of sample in 35 minutes. If samples are too concentrated, the injection speed may be decreased or the sample may be diluted to achieve good sorting efficiency.
Download a copy of the FACS Aria IIIu’s specifications – ARIA_Specs