Flow Cytometry Synthetic Cell Controls
Precise, reliable and repeatable results

Spend less time qualifying results, and more time getting results. Slingshot’s Flow Cytometry Synthetic Cell Controls make these goals achievable in your experiments. The revolutionary technology decreases cost, shortens development timelines and increases stability, impact and accessibility. This is a new paradigm for drug development, diagnostics and cell therapy – one without limitations.

Spend less time and resources developing cell reference materials and QC standards and more time:

• Advancing translational research
• Achieving unparalleled cell analysis and biomarker quantitation
• Streamlining QC processes for cell therapies to get them to patients faster

A new standard for instrument calibration and traceability

Breakthrough cellular mimics that match the optical properties of cells. Sets a new standard for instrument calibration and traceability.

FlowCytes® are the ideal alternative to using cell controls. Instantly and easily mimic lymphocyte, monocyte, and granulocyte populations to calibrate instruments or to QC assays. Ensuring that instruments are at peak performance and consistent over time is critical to generating quality flow cytometry data. Slingshot’s technology uniquely solves this by combining ease of use, accuracy, and consistency to the complicated world of instrument calibration.

Our shelf-stable synthetic cells are produced with incredibly high precision which translates to minimal lot-to-lot variability and consistent precision. FlowCytes® are the ideal solution to ensure that the most advanced flow cytometers are always at peak performance.

Isolated PBMCs (left figure) – VS. – FlowCytes® PBMC mimics (right figure)

FlowCytes® synthetic white blood cells (WBC) are shelf stable synthetic cells that mimic the optical properties of human blood populations for unfixed lymphocytes, monocytes, and granulocytes. This product is intended as a forward and side scatter control for the identification and analysis of whole blood populations. The synthetic mimics can be used to measure flow cytometry instrument performance or as an assay control for traceability and standardization.

Features:

• Easy to use and seamlessly fits into existing workflow. No special handling and preparation, unlike with biological controls
• Highly precise performance with minimal lot-to-lot variability
• Long shelf-life and stability at room temperature for convenient use in the field
• Safe, non-biohazardous product that travels anywhere

Synthetic fluorescence compensation controls designed for the modern spectral flow cytometry. SpectraComp® compensation controls are state-of-the-art synthetic cells that mimic the scatter profile of lymphocytes, captures multiple species of antibodies, and matches the spectral fluorescence of stained cells. This product is intended for spectral compensation to match the single staining of real cells. Staining with the capture beads yield a positive and a negative fluorescence peak that will aid in resolving the performance of the dyes and in compensating for spectral overlaps of dyes.

Optimize your spectral flow analysis

Fluorescence, compensation, and cellular controls are the backbone of generating reliable flow cytometry data. Polystyrene solid-core beads used for instrument and assay setup have high levels of non-specific binding, do not mimic cell autofluorescence, and have fundamentally different properties from cells, including FSC vs SSC. This leads to controls that do not match the spectral profile of single stained cells, under-or over-compensation calculations, and ultimately compromised accuracy of data.

SpectraComp® compensation controls from Slingshot Biosciences are synthetic cells that mimic the optical and autofluorescence profile of lymphocytes and capture multiple species of antibodies. Precise, reliable, and repeatable results – with SpectraComp®, these goals are now achievable in your spectral flow cytometry experiments.

Autofluorescence in Spectral Analysis. Autofluorescence across a full emission spectrum was evaluated for cells, SpectraComp® and competitor polystyrene-based compensation beads.

Features:

• Unparalleled high fluorescence response (greater than 10e5 MFI)
• Conveniently works with multiple species of antibodies: mouse, rat, and hamster
• Exceptional performance in spectral analysis and unmixing
• Compatible with violet and UV fluorochromes
• Cell-like autofluorescence for superior signal-to-noise performance

Convenient and reliable controls to measure cell health.

ViaComp® viability controls are advanced 2-in-1 beads that bind to both DNA intercalating dyes (7AAD, DAPI, PI) and amine-reactive viability dyes to simulate the viability staining of cells. This product is intended as compensation and assay controls to match the viability staining of real cells. The combination of positive and negative binding beads yields positive and negative fluorescence peaks that will aid in identifying the live and dead cell populations.

Viability staining is important both in experimental research and therapeutic applications of flow cytometry. Creating consistent, reliable cell viability controls is difficult, which becomes much harder when researchers have limited biospecimens. Currently, common viability control methods require researchers to kill a portion of their cells in an added step that is wasteful, time-consuming, and often still does not achieve the desired standard of control.

ViaComp® is a one-of-a-kind viability control containing conveniently pre-mixed live and dead synthetic cell mimics. ViaComp® dead cell mimics contain DNA, making this reagent a full process control for DNA-intercalating live/dead labeling. At the same time, the product works exceptionally well with a wide array of both DNA and primary amine dyes.

High DNA Binding. ViaComp® beads have encapsulated DNA which yield a high and specific signal to DNA intercalating dyes. Moreover, the mixed positive and negative beads result in clear separation of the peaks.

Features:

• The only viability control that binds to both DNA and amine-reactive viability dyes
• Exceptionally positive peak signal (greater than 10e5 MFI) to make detection easy
• Zero non-specific binding to the negative peak
• Conveniently pre-mixed negative and positive control beads in a ready-to-use dropper bottle

High performance synthetic cells with key biomarkers. Experience a new level of accuracy and reliability.

Flow cytometry, a critical enabling technology, has significantly ad­vanced over the last 30 years, with the exception of cellular controls. Current blood controls cannot be manufactured without using tech­nology to combine human and an­imal cells or sourcing primary cells from active donors. Only <1% of blood diseases have available con­trols. These biological controls have high cost, batch-to-batch variabil­ity, cell line maintenance, biohaz­ardous shipping and handling, and poor stability.

TruCytes™ products:

• TruCytes™ TBNK Control
• TruCytes™ Fixed Synthetic WBC
• TruCytes™ TBMNK Control
• TruCytes™ NK-Cell CD16/53+ Mimics
• TruCytes™ B-Cell CD19+ Mimics
• TruCytes™ T-Cell CD8+ Mimics
• TruCytes™ T-Cell CD4+ Mimics

On top of these, TruCytes™ can be customized to match rare diseases – a known bottle­neck in development – and any hema­tological malignancy in record time.

TruCytes™ TBNK Synthetic Cellular Controls match the biochemical profile and optical properties of any target cell population, eliminating the drawbacks that traditionally come with using bio-based cellular controls.

Features:

• Easy to use and seamlessly fits into existing workflow. No special handling and preparation, unlike with biological controls
• Safe, non-biohazardous product that travels anywhere
• Accurate antigen density to match the correct cell types
• Biomarker “expression” can be tuned to match poorly-expressed markers
• Superior consistency and reliability with minimal lot-to-lot variability as compared to traditional controls
• Long shelf-life and stability at room temperature for convenient use in the field compared to biologically-derived cellular controls