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Research Area - Toxicology

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Merck:/Freestyle/BI-Bioscience/Cell-Analysis/amnis/Amnis-Research-Images/toxicology.jpg Understanding the health risk that exposure to environmental or administered agents pose to human health is of central importance to the field of Toxicology. The micronucleus assay is commonly employed to assess the genotoxic potential of compounds or drug candidates - those that pose a threat induce the formation of chromosome fragments that are not pulled toward the daughter cells during cell division. Such micronuclei are counted using manual microscopy techniques. The combination of high speed image acquisition and quantitative image analysis provided by Amnis® imaging flow cytometry system is a major improvement to this field of study, enabling rapid automated identification of micronuclei-containing cells.

Micronuclei Testing

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The micronucleus assay is the preferred method for evaluating the genotoxicity of drugs and other chemical agents. This experiment demonstrates the ability of the Imagestream®x system to rapidly classify apoptotic, bi-nucleated, and micronucleated events within cell populations simply using brightfield and nuclear imagery. Traditionally, cell biologists performing micronucleus assays have had to choose between manual microscopy, which is time-consuming and tedious, and flow cytometry, which can rapidly process large cell populations but lacks the ability to image the nucleus in intact cells. The Amnis® Imagestream®x system solves both problems by combining flow cytometry with sophisticated digital imaging and analysis capabilities.