ProCell Product Range

Anticlotting Reagent consists of a mixture of enzymes that actively break down the proteins that compose blood clots, providing fast and gentle dissolution of blood clots in precious cytogenetic samples, such as bone marrows and blood specimens and removing the requirement for repeat sampling in many cases. The product contains no trace of streptokinase (which can be toxic to cells). Anticlotting Reagent has been found to very effective for the fast and safe removal of maternal blood clots from Chorionic Villi Sampling (CVS). Tests show that indirect CVS treated with Anticlotting Reagent are ready an average of 2 days earlier, therefore, reducing reporting time. Anticlotting Reagent is also effective on solid tumour and lymph node tissue. These specimens often contain blood clots that can hinder growth of the required cell type and Anticlotting Reagent will also help to break down the tissues, enabling colony establishment more rapidly.

Lymphocyte Growth Supplement is a complex mixture of growth promoters that have a marked stimulatory effect on peripheral lymphocyte cultures. Lymphocyte Growth Supplement has been found to improve cell growth and mitotic index, as well as improving chromosome morphology in blood cultures by exposing these cells to growth factors that are known growth promoters. Lymphocyte Growth Supplement can reduce culture times from 72 hours down to 48 hours, particularly useful for urgent samples and samples arriving midweek. Lymphocyte Growth Supplement has a marked stimulatory effect on bloods. It is a complex mixture of growth factors dissolved in DMEM containing FCS. Advantages that will be seen in blood cultures are the following: a significant improvement in cell growth, even in very poor samples improved morphology and GTG banding a decrease in turn-around times.

Chromosome Resolution Additive (CRA) is a commercial formulation that consistently prevents chromosome contraction and encourages chromosome elongation by loosening the chemical bonding within the supercoiled structure of the chromosome. It was developed especially for tissues resistant to existing elongation techniques, such as bone marrows and solid tumour samples. CRA contains no ethidium bromide or thymidine.

Cytoclear (consisting of a mixture of protein detergents) can quickly dissolve and remove persistent cytoplasm (mainly caused by inadequate hypotonic treatment) during the methanol:acetic acid fixation stage of the chromosome harvesting procedure. In particular, it dissolves the lipid and glycoprotein structure of which cytoplasm is mainly composed. Clumped metaphases that would normally be impossible to analyse, can now be restored. Cytoclear is a useful tool in FISH hybridizations as it enables the probe to reach the target by removing barrier cytoplasm.

Developed for acute leukaemia bone marrow and tumour cells, also useful with problem blood and other problematic sample types.

Buffered Hypotonic Solution is a hypotonic solution developed for bone marrow specimens. It has been found to achieve good metaphase swelling (spreading) from a wide range of sample types and significantly increases the number of useful metaphases in leukaemic bone marrow and stem cell cultures when compared to the standard 0.075M KCL hypotonic. It contains 0.4% KCL with HEPES.

Pre-Hypotonic Solution is to be used before the hypotonic stage of a blood or bone marrow harvest. Pre-Hypotonic solution makes the hypotonic step more effective by circumventing the tendency of chromosomes to clump or to under-spread. The clumping of metaphases during the harvesting procedure often results in the loss of useful metaphases or the loss of entire cultures. Procedures such as FISH that require good well spread metaphases are often hampered by this problem. Pre-Hypotonic Solution was developed to address this clumping problem. Optimal metaphase swelling can therefore subsequently be achieved by using hypotonic solution. Pre-Hypotonic Solution has been found to be particularly useful for generating template

Pre-Hypotonic CGH metaphases and for improving the quality of the subsequent CGH hybridisations.

Metaphase Arresting Solution is a highly refined solution of colchicine/vinblastine sulphate in PBS, used to increase the percentage of metaphase cells for chromosomal studies. The product is designed to be more effective than colchicine alone for bone marrows, difficult tumours and other problematic tissues with low mitotic indexes, and where colchicine/colcemid appears to be ineffective.. Metaphase Arresting Solution has been found to be useful for sensitive cultures where cells lift off when colchicine is added. It is gentler than colchicine so cells do not have such an adverse reaction.

Erythrocyte Lysis Solution is a simple pretreatment of heavily blood-stained amniotic fluid samples which quickly removes heavy red blood cell (erythrocyte) contamination. Unlike many similar products used in molecular biology that lyse red blood cells, this product is extremely gentle in its action and is specially suited for cell culture work. It is well documented that high concentrations of red blood cells inhibit growth of cells from amniotic fluid by restricting colony size. This product will not prevent maternal contamination from occurring because it has no effect on white blood cells.