Moshaver, et al. gave an oral presentation at the ESCCA euroconference, Luxembourg in November. In "DRAQ7, a novel viability dye for accurate determination of existing dead & apoptotic cells in CD34+ stem cell enumeration" the overall conclusions were:
- DRAQ7 is a more suitable viability dye [than 7-AAD] to determine the correct numbers of dead and apoptotic stem cells
- Allows a new design of combination analysis for cell health and status
- Therefore it should be incorporated in FCM research and clinical protocols, especially in the CD34+ SC enumeration assay
Data was early presented as a poster at EBMT 2013 comparing the significantly improved separation of intact, intermediate (i.e. just failed) and fully leaky/dead cells with DRAQ7 compared to 7-AAD, that allowed practical and confident setting of the "live" gate.
Schretzenmair, et al. presented a poster at the iCCS conference, Fort Lauderdale in October.
In "Multichannel Fluorescence of DRAQ7 May Allow Accurate Exclusion of Dead Cells Without the Use of A Dedicated Channel" they further explore DRAQ7 to exclude dead cells without expending a dedicated channel. Taking advantage of the multi-beam excitation of DRAQ7 they could utilise multi-colour panels on the BD FACSCanto instrument.
