Dear community:

I would like to perform experiments for the separation of live and dead yeast via DEP.

Detection should occur by observation using a fluorescent microscope.

I found two common Live/Dead staining kits from Thermo Fisher. One is based on FUN, which apparently labels live cells read (but with a little bit of residue green) whereas it labels dead cells only green.

The other one is based on SYTO 9 and labels all cells green, dead cells are labeled with another dye red.

Anyway, it always appears as if it would not be a 100% clear separation because one fraction will always carry two colors or at least residue color...

Anyway, these kits are usually to determine the percentage of dead cells among live cells. Since I will grow live cells and then purposely kill half of them I do not need such kits. I just want to label both fractions of cells in a different color. ThermoFisher offers like a million different fluorescent stains and it is very difficult for me to find out which stains would be suitable for my needs.

Is it possible to find stains that label yeast cells irrespective of the fact whether they are dead or alive? Are these stains available in different colors, for example red and green? Could I then grow yeast, take half of the population, kill it by heating, label the dead population red and the live population green and then put them back together? will this work?

Could you recommend stains for this purpose? I know of SYTO 9 which labels cells green irrespective of their viability but is there something similar with red color?

Thanks for your help!