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Does anyone have any experience with either of these cell counters? We're replacing our Nexcelom Cellometer with a more high throughput unit that will provide better accuracy with our 10X fixed cells. In the demos, the FX7 counted the fixed cells with no changes in the standard protocol. The Ascend required a slight boost in brightness, but not the long exposures we need to use for the Cellometer.

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Heidi Monroe
Managing Director
Single Cell Core
University of Pittsburgh
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Hi Heidi,

I would love to hear other's experience as well.  We are currently evaluating both instruments.  The demo session for the FX7 was longer, so we were able to play with it more, but we did not have any clumpy cells or dissociated tissue to test.  The viability compared to manual counting was accurate. 

The Ascend demo was fast and furious (about an hour and a half) but we did have fixed dissociated tissue for that demo. It seemed to do a good job of recognizing cell v/s debris. The live cell counts were comparable to the DeNovix CellDrop-FL, but we didn't have an opportunity to count manually. They have protocols in place for nuclei as well, which will also report the level of "clumpiness." 

FX7 also reported on cell clusters (not our data, but provided by Logos) which looked like a graph reporting numbers of clusters containing 1,2,3, etc cells/cluster)

I would love to hear an update on what you decided to purchase.

Regards,

Elizabeth

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Elizabeth Hudson
University of Louisville
Louisville KY
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We decided to purchase the Ascend. I'm hoping to receive it soon. We liked the reporting and interface a bit more with the Ascend. The FX7 also broke while we were doing the demo (the demo units are sent all over the place, so this didn't go into our decision too much). The reps of the FX7 were hesitant to support other dyes like NucSpot 470, or even other sources of AOPI, whereas the reps at Revvity will work with many different fluorescent dyes. 

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Heidi Monroe
Managing Director
Single Cell Core
University of Pittsburgh
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-13-2024 15:28
From: Elizabeth Hudson
Subject: Cell Counter-Luna FX7 vs Revvity Ascend

Hi Heidi,

I would love to hear other's experience as well.  We are currently evaluating both instruments.  The demo session for the FX7 was longer, so we were able to play with it more, but we did not have any clumpy cells or dissociated tissue to test.  The viability compared to manual counting was accurate. 

The Ascend demo was fast and furious (about an hour and a half) but we did have fixed dissociated tissue for that demo. It seemed to do a good job of recognizing cell v/s debris. The live cell counts were comparable to the DeNovix CellDrop-FL, but we didn't have an opportunity to count manually. They have protocols in place for nuclei as well, which will also report the level of "clumpiness." 

FX7 also reported on cell clusters (not our data, but provided by Logos) which looked like a graph reporting numbers of clusters containing 1,2,3, etc cells/cluster)

I would love to hear an update on what you decided to purchase.

Regards,

Elizabeth

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Elizabeth Hudson
University of Louisville
Louisville KY
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Hi Heidi, 

We routinely use the Luna FX7 for the fixed RNA and other assays. We work with a lot of different sample types, so we've seen that generally the counts are accurate across many sample types regardless of their debris and clumpiness. While we take more time to ensure we're getting an accurate count by changing the parameters, we do generally see numbers within the expected range from 10x. We also did some testing with increasing the dye to sample ratio for fixed samples and found the FX7 to be consistent regardless of what ratio we used.  We like that it is flexible and easy to use. We can count and assess 8 samples at one time with the flexibility to run less if needed using lower throughput slides. You are also given the % single cell which is a helpful number when dealing with subpar samples. You get images from multiple fields and this gives us confidence when assessing challenging samples. While you may need to adjust parameters from the default for nuclei or while testing new samples, we've found it easy to use and have had great service when needed in MA. Lastly, because it can take time to get a solid protocol in place for some samples, we routinely process cells through a cell prep test where we have the time to adjust the parameters and recount without the intention of running the samples through any assays. 

Hope this helps and happy to chat more about our experience. 

Best of luck!

Nicole 

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Nicole Ramirez
Assistant Director of the Bauer Sequencing Core
Harvard University
Cambridge MA
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