Perkin Elmer OPAL 7 kit experiences

Posted by daj1u06 on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/Perkin-Elmer-OPAL-7-kit-experiences-tp7588991.html

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Hi All, I was wondering if anyone has had experience of using the Perkin Elmer & probe OPAL kit with confocal, especially with Leica spectral detection systems. With a fair amount of workup we have users using the OPAL 4 kit reliably but the OPAL 7 seems to provide significant extra challenges, particularly the very close overlap of the first 2 probes ("520" and "540" (actually 525 and 536 peaks) and the fact that no spectra seem to be available - the PE imaging systems would appear to rely on spectral unmixing using propriatory data. We have generated partial emision spectra for the 4 colour kit by lambda scanning but those likely wouldn't be good enough for unmixing purposes, which we would rather not have to rely on, and don't have a means of generating excitation spectra. Our best suggestion to date is to use the 4 colour kit on 2 consecutive serial sections. Any other suggestions and thoughts gratefully received.
Dave Johnston, Biomedical Imaging Unit, Southampton.