ATTACHMENT STAINING - A NOVEL METHOD FOR FLOW CYTOMETRIC QUANTITATIONOF PROTEIN EXPRESSION IN LIMITED NUMBERS OF ADHERENT CELLS

Measurement of protein expression in adherent cells in culture by flow cytometry, although potentially a very powerful method, has so far fo und limited application. Where the method has been applied successfull y, cells have been resuspended for analysis either prior to experiment al treatment or before immunostaining. Such approaches have several li mitations and do not permit analysis of Limited numbers of cells. Here we describe a method of attachment staining which allows protein expr ession in a few thousand adherent cells to be analyzed by flow cytomet ry. The method has been successfully used for the measurement of growt h factor-induced c-Fos protein expression and measurement of c-Fos exp ression in samples of <3,000 adherent fibroblasts. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss , Inc.