DATE: February 27, 2018
TIME:  8:00AM PST, 11:00AM EST

The complexity of the manufacturing process of probiotic supplements, along with increased demand and strict criteria for quality, potency and safety, in accordance to FDA regulations, necessitates that manufacturers continue to improve production processes that increase productivity and efficiency. Flow Cytometry is a viable option for a non-culture based method for enumerating cells for probiotics manufacture. Using the CytoFLEX flow cytometer with its ability to resolve small particles down to 200nm, it was possible to reliably count bacteria as small as 0.5μm. This analysis allowed to compare and contrast culture-based and flow cytometry based workflows for probiotic cell enumeration. The results obtained in this study indicate that flow cytometry is applicable for probiotic cell count assay; both dyes, SYTO9 and PI were able to identify viable and non-viable cells, providing the analyst additional information on the status of the cultures.

Learning objectives:

• The importance of gating and threshold settings strategy
• Comparison between traditional probiotic cell counts versus a new approach using flow cytometry method
• Bacterial cell staining process