Flow Cytometry Worksheet

A Lead-in

1 Have you ever worked with a flow cytometer? Is it difficult to manipulate? Why yes/no?

2 What is flow cytometry used for?

B Vocabulary warm-up

B1 Pronounce correctly and find the Czech equivalent:

1 Particles                          a) odpovídající, příslušný

2 Fluid                                 b) vydávat, vyzařovat

3 Beam                                c) čočky

4 Granularity                     d) optická lavice/soustava

5 Complexity                    e) zpracovat

6 Fluorescence                f) granularita

7 Emit                                  g) částice

8 Scatter                             h) paprsek

9 Illuminate                      i) složení (buňky)

10 Appropriate                j) kapalina

11 Convert                         k) světélkování

12 Process                          m) laločnatost

13 Lenses                           n) rozptýlit

14 Lobularity                     o) osvítit, ozářit

15 Optical bench             p) přeměnit


C Reading

C1 Do the reading activity and answer the following
questions:

1 What properties of a cell or particle can you measure by a flow cytometer?

2 What light source is used in most flow cytometers? Which verbs do you associate with light?

3 What are the three main systems in a flow cytometer? What is their role?


C2 Now read the following text and fill each gap with ONE word. Then answer the three questions
below.

In the flow cytometer, __________ (1) are carried to the laser in a fluid stream. The part of the
fluid stream where these are located is called the sample core. __________ (2) particles pass
through the laser beam, they scatter laser light. Any fluorescent molecules present ________ (3)
the particle fluoresce. The scattered and fluorescent light is collected _________ (4) lenses. A
combination of beam splitters and filters brings the scattered and fluorescent light to the
detectors. The detectors produce electronic signals. __________ (5) signals correspond with the
optical signals striking the detectors.

4 What is the name of the portion of the fluid stream where the cells are located?

5 When cells labelled with fluorescent molecules pass through the laser beam, what two types of
light signals are generated?

6 Which part of the flow cytometer collects light emitted from a particle?

D Flow cytometry – listening

A Match these words to make collocations:

1 compare                          a) cells through the cytometer

2 treat                                  b) an antigen

3 put                                     c) through the laser beam

4 pass                                   d) to the blood

5 detect                              e) patients

6 spread                              f) results

7 label up                           g) leukaemia

8 align                                  h) with a fluorescent antibody

9 recognize                        i) cells into a single file


B Listen and decide if the statements are true or false.

1 Dr Wallace meets a lot of patients every day.

2 He mentions two examples of samples he works with.

3 As examples of antigens, he mentions CD4, leukaemia and lymphoma antigens.

4 As part of his job, he looks for ways to treat minimal residual disease (=decrease the number of
leukaemic cells).

5 The standard flow cytometers in their laboratory can process 70 000 cells per second.

6 Thanks to the flow cytometer, the pathologist can look at hundreds of thousand cells per second.

7 They are able to get results in two hours.

8 According to Dr Wallace, ancillary tests are always necessary.


E Grammar point

Past perfect (předminulý čas)