Plant Flow Cytometry - Far Beyond the Stone Age Commentary on Cytometry Journal

In a close association with the review of Sergio Ochatt on the application of flow cytometry in plant breeding (see previous post) that appears in the current issue of Cytometry Part A journal we have been invited to write a commentary on the current state of flow cytometry in plant sciences. It is a short overview of the applications of flow cytometry to analyse plant cells and once again the blog, forum and FLOWer database were not forgotten. We hope that you enjoy the reading.

You can download it for free in here: Plant Flow Cytometry - Far Beyond the Stone Age

FLOWer database version 1.0 has just been launched

I am very pleased to announce that version 1.0 of the FLOWer database is finally ready and online (http://flower.web.ua.pt/). After some serious problems with the programming of the previous version of the database, we are very glad that the first release of the database is up and running. You are welcome to visit it and I encourage you to use the database as a unique resource of publications on DNA flow cytometry in plant sciences. Your opinion is very important to us, so it would be nice to receive any feedback through the shoutbox available in the home page or directly to this e-mail. The database presently harbours 826 publications, and you are welcome to provide us with any missing ones through the contribution area available in the menu bar of the home page.

This is part of the e-mail that was sent to many colleagues of the plant flow cytometry area, where this blog and the forum of plant flow cytometry were also promoted. I hope that you like all these resources that were made available to you.

Many thanks for stopping by.

ISAC Congress - Day 4

The Day 4 of the now International Society of Advancements on Cytometry saw the comeback of the plant sciences, first by the presence of Jaroslav Dolezel in the Parallel Session of "High Throughput, High Content Analysis" with the very interesting talk on "Development of Flow-Based Strategies for Genomics of Crop Plants". There were also some interesting talks on the Advances in Flow Cytometry Instrumentation, especially those related with Acoustically Focused Sample Streams.

The day continued with the presentation of the FlowJo Software, this time dedicated to the bare basics. It seems quite a powerful tool, but still I would like to test it myself to evaluate which features may be of particular interest for plant DNA flow cytometry purposes. Again, and as with the new instruments, I will soon dedicate a post to the new software that was presented in the Congress.


In the afternoon the first Workshop dedicated to plants took place "Plant Genome Structure and Gene Expression", and to our surprise up to 25 people were present, which clearly surpassed our best expectations. The Workshop was wonderfully conducted by Jaroslav Dolezel and David Galbraith, and we had nice talks made by Jan Suda, Johann Greilhuber and by both chairmans, which covered several topics on the application of FCM in plant sciences, from sample preparation and storage, standards and standardizations, chromosome sorting for studies of genome structure and protoplasts and nuclei sorting for studies of gene expression. I had the opportunity to present some slides on the effect of cytosol on the quantitative staining of DNA, which despite being well received, w perhaps too technical for what was intended. However in each talk, some interesting questions were made and in the end we were satisfied with the overall output and reception of the workshop.

The poster session was just afterwards and again it was a nice opportunity to present the FLOWer database to many different people. The reception was good and it was a very nice idea of the congress organizers to put all the poster of similar areas close to each other.

By the end of the day, I was almost "dead" but there were still some forces for some good dinner and fruitful discussions.

Our poster on the FLOWer database presented in ISAC Congress 2008

Contribution area of the FLOWer database is available

Finally the contribution area of the FLOWer database is up and running. By this way you can help us to improve the database by providing either the pdf file or the reference to any of the missing articles.

Many thanks in advance for your important contribution for the improvement of the database.

Update of the FLOWer database

We are developing great efforts to put the FLOWer database working as we wanted. After having some problems with the first version of the database, a new version is being implemented and today it is finally possible to search by Family, Genus and Species. It is a great improvement as these are some of the most important fields that a researcher may want to search when consulting the database. Other small changes have also been made, such as sorting by columns on the "Search Results", and some formatting issues on the "Articles Details" sections.

Soon, we expect to have the Contribution area finished, and then you can help us more actively by providing the reference to missing articles on the database.

We will post any more relevant updates when it is convenient.

FLOWer database statistics - Top 10 journals of plant DNA flow cytometry

The day zero

May this be the day 0 of this Blog and of the Forum of Plant Flow Cytometry. Today I sent an e-mail to more than 390 corresponding authors of publications concerning plant flow cytometry and included in the FLOWer database, publicizing the blog and forum. Despite many of those e-mails came back with errors (possibly due to e-mail updates since appearance in publications), I believe that in many cases they arrived at the author's mailboxes with success. As a result, we've seen many visits to the blog and some registrations in the Forum, with the first non-jloureiro topic being posted. So, I must say that I am quite happy with the impact that the e-mail had today and I hope that it continues in the following days.

I encourage all of you to contribute either with comments to these posts or/and with topics in the forum. I also stimulate you to make as much publicity as possible, to see if we can gather a huge amount of researchers to this on-line community. Please remember that these new web resources will only work if you participate actively on them.

Below follows the e-mail that was sent today:

Dear colleagues,

It is with great pleasure that I announce the first forum and blog on plant flow cytometry. These two new platforms are at your disposal to discuss general topics in plant flow cytometry, to post any doubts or questions related to (the analysis of plant cells using flow cytometry) PLANT FLOW CYTOMETRY, to announce upcoming congresses and courses, etc.

Such platforms are only valuable if you participate actively and if there is a regular number of new posts and comments. Therefore, I invite you to register in the forum and use it on your best interests. The blog can be a very informal way of communicating and posting new and interesting information on plant flow cytometry, and you are encouraged to comment on the various topics that will be regularly posted.

You can access the forum at the following address: http://flowerdatabase.20.forumer.com/index.php and the blog at: http://flowerdatabase.blogspot.com/ .

These (two) new tools of communication appeared first as a companion to the FLOWER database (the Plant DNA Flow Cytometry Database: http://flower.web.ua.pt/), but are now directed to plant flow cytometry in general. Please consider that the FLOWER database is still in its beginning (beta version), and thus it still presents some flaws.

With best regards,

João Loureiro

Welcoming

Welcome to the Plant Flow Cytometry blog. This new way of communicating will be used to post any news concerning the application of flow cytometry to plant cells, with the FLOWer database getting particular attention. Other science news that deserve further attention will also be matter of our interests.