BD FACSAria Fusion by BD Biosciences

"This cell sorter is a very good machine in terms of effectiveness for a large range of possible applications, based on the type of cells and experiments. It has quartz cuvettes and the drop delay calculation is easy using BD Accudrop beads. One of the most important characteristics in sorter machines is stability to maintain the first drop for the best drop delay value: with BDFACS Fusion you have very high stability that allows you to have a high sorting efficiency and reproducibility. Even when you have to change the nozzle and thus change the pressure of the sheath, the instrument is very fast to reach new stability. This sorter is suitable for 4-way sorting tubes or microscopy slides or 96/384 plates."

"The Aria line of cell sorters has been extremely dependable and reliable, and the Fusion continues this legacy. The instrument, as a special-order research product (SORP), is configurable with a wide array of lasers and detectors – making it adaptable to most research environments and applications. A variety of nozzle sizes are available and can be configured to operate at a wide range of pressures with flexibility within the software. Nozzles are very durable and last about 1.5 years or longer depending how frequently the instrument is used. At approx. 100 hours of sorting per month, I have been able to use the same nozzle for almost 2 years. Changing pressures is easily achieved via the software and stabilizes more rapidly going from lower to higher pressures. With a 70micron nozzle, 70 psi and sorting lymphocytes, I have typically achieved sort purity percentages in the high 90% range, at a rate of about 18,000 cells per second. Neurons have done well at 100micron nozzle and 16 psi. Without question, results vary depending on viability and the amount of debris associated with your samples. Changing over from bulk to single cell sorting takes a few minutes to set everything up in the software and to manually align the sort streams. A 96 well plate takes only a few minutes to run and typically greater than 95% of the wells, when performing a single cell cloning sort, contain a single cell – as determined by index sorting analysis and microscopy. The software (Diva) is to some degree intuitive. However, it is primarily software to acquire list mode data files with not much more capability beyond that for analysis. Higher-order analysis requires third party software that can read FCS3.0 formatted data files. Still, for most applications, by the time parameters and gates have been established for sorting, the same template is directly usable—or with slight modification—to analyze the data file and generate numerical values for population frequency, absolute counts, mean channel intensity and other statistical values. The Aria Fusion is very similar in design from the standpoint of the operator although many advances in hardware have been made since the launch of the Aria I. Overall, the instrument has become more reliable as I typically have had fewer than 2 days of down time per year over the past 5 years. Part of that is attributed to the outstanding knowledge and dedication of the service engineers. Although I have spent a small fortune on service contracts over the past 20 years, I would have to say it was money well spent from the standpoint of keeping research on track within the core facility. Additionally, the telephone support assistants have been extremely personable, knowledgeable and helpful in walking users through trouble shooting when problems have arose."

"I have personally used the FACS Aria for cell sorting of CD133+ cells. This population is approximately 0.2%. I was able to not only get these cells, they were also viable and I did a number of assays on them. The FACS aria is also amazing for multi-color flow cytometry with the number of lasers equipped. We also had a sterile field around to use for HIV infected cells."

"It's a great piece of equipment because it allows you to perform different experiments in cell biology. With this product you can run some apoptosis analysis with Anexin V, cell cycle or immune analysis with more than two antibodies maintaining the quality."

"We used this facs machine to easily sort tumor cells out of tissues as well as cell culture samples. The most convenient application is the single cell sorting function into 384well plates, which would otherwise take hours to seed."

"BD FACSARIA II is quite easy to set up but requires a lot of maintenance work. For cell analysis, we can use minimum amount of cells for antibody staining and still get good reading. However, after some time of usage, cell sorting becomes a lot hard to set up. We have adjusted many times but still did not like before."

"A fast system which gives clear, good quality results."

"It sorts well and gives great purity. However it is a delicate instrument and break downs often occur due to clotting or some other issue."

"It's easy to use and pretty good."