A fast fluorescence imaging flow cytometer for phytoplankton analysis.

ABSTRACT

We report a fast fluorescence imaging flow cytometer for phytoplankton analysis that can achieve a volume flow rate up to 1ml/min. The instrument shows a high immunity to motion blur in image captured with a lateral resolution of 0.75 ± 0.06 µm for a wide size range ~1 µm to ~200 µm. This is made possible by suppressing the out-of-focus light using thin light sheet illumination and image deconvolution, and by precluding the motion-blur with a unique flow configuration. Preliminary results from untreated coastal water samples show the technique has high potential as a practical field instrument for monitoring phytoplankton abundance and species composition.