Yes, I have 5HT in our department. There are some pros and cons.

Pro:

Cheap

Small size

Micropcapillary system - ca 80ml of waste fluid per 8h of continuous work

Microcapilary system is adjustable by user - no need to have service for calibration of laser beam etc

Very intuitive software, especially for people, who have no previous experience with Cellquest and Diva. Incyte is more "windows based"

Nice tool for compensation, also "post factum"

When you use dedicated kits from MerckMillipore, they are calibrated for guava - you don't care to much about cytometer settings and compensations

Nice software options for analysis of multiwell experiments - heat map.

Real count w/o beads.

Cons:

Microcapillary sytem - washing and washing and washing again ;)

Microcapillary sytem - our guava frequently breaks capillary (we are still on guarantee period so MM ship new for free.

Counting of rare cells is rather hard and time consuming – software pooling multiple wells to one sample. In fact we manage to count EPCs, but it take several hours per two samples (FMO control + sample)

Yes, I have 5HT in our department. There are some pros and cons.

Pro:

Cheap

Small size

Micropcapillary system - ca 80ml of waste fluid per 8h of continuous work

Microcapilary system is adjustable by user - no need to have service for calibration of laser beam etc

Very intuitive software, especially for people, who have no previous experience with Cellquest and Diva. Incyte is more "windows based"

Nice tool for compensation, also "post factum"

When you use dedicated kits from MerckMillipore, they are calibrated for guava - you don't care to much about cytometer settings and compensations

Nice software options for analysis of multiwell experiments - heat map.

Real count w/o beads.

Cons:

Microcapillary sytem - washing and washing and washing again ;)

Microcapillary sytem - our guava frequently breaks capillary (we are still on guarantee period so MM ship new for free.

Counting of rare cells is rather hard and time consuming – software pooling multiple wells to one sample. In fact we manage to count EPCs, but it take several hours per two samples (FMO control + sample)

Our lab tested out one of the Guava machines with dual lasers and the automated 96-well plate reader about 2 years ago. The machine is very compact and the software was relatively fast. Because the instrument uses a capillary, there are very few buffers involved, which is nice in terms of ordering and storage.

The fact that the instrument uses a capillary is both a plus and a minus, depending on the intended application. For my cell cycle experiments, which tend to have a small number of cells and need to be run at slow flow rates, the capillary was great because it can handle very small sample volumes, which meant I would not have to dilute samples and that overall the run would be faster. On the other hand, running yeast was a bit more problematic because the densities were too high for the system to handle, so samples had to be diluted, which adds an extra step to the protocol.

Another feature that can be a plus or a minus is the fact that for the plate reader at least, the entire plate is hidden in the machine during runs. The plus side of this is that for light-sensitive stains or antibodies, this is a good way to prevent photo-bleaching. On the otherhand, I like to monitor the volumes in the plate and check for clumping during long runs, which cannot be done with the Guava.

Thank you very much for your information!! I will ask some thinks you mentioned here during the demo! :)

I have one and it works great.... needs fewer cells but I never had to compensate...Always preferred flowjo to graph the data however

Dear Alexander, our lab has 3 EasyCyte HT machines. We use them for cell surface stainings, tetramers, intracellular cytokines and proliferation via EdU incorporation. We used to do all these assays on a Canto II (we still have one Canto in the lab for certian more complicated assays/analysis), we experience the same sensitivity with the advantage of direct cell counting, low waste volumes/noise and easy to use software and fluidics (needle replacement etc) and you need less space. We run a lot of 96w plates/day.

Kind regards, Sofie

We are having one Guava Easy cyte, It is compact but you can use only four markers max in a sample.

Less sample requirement is good for certain pure expanded populations but for detecting a population of cells which are very few in the sample it is difficult.

As an operator u cant take more time for setting up the voltages and compensation, since the sample volume per well is less and also the evnets per ml should be within 500cells/ml

hi, we just moved to a new lab and we inherited guava easycyte 5HT machine, but we have no idea how to use it. Is there anyone who will be willing to teach me? I am willing to come to your lab (if it is close to Hunitngton,WV or toledo,OH).

Would this cytometer be suitable to do tetramer analysis (more than 100 000 events to acquire)?

Hi guys,

Once you get the data out from the GUAVA system, it is a easy way or at least you know about a pipeline to get the graphs and values to compare potential different ploidies?

Thanks.

You can export the files as FCS and use FloJO.

Hi 

I am new with Guava easyCheck flow cytometry, could anyone let me know which flow rate (High, med or low) should be used with RBCs (Red Blood cells) samples? and for Sulforhidamine dye (excitation 550 nm and emission 580 nm) , which laser (Blue, Red or violet) should be used? 

Thanks