Dye-Trak Microspheres

Non-radioactive Microsphere

Triton Technology sells two types of fluorescent microspheres: Triton Technology Dye-Trak 'F' fluorescent microspheres and the Molecular Probes FluoSpheres®.

Fluorescent microspheres are a sensitive non-radioactive method of measuring regional blood flow by dye extraction. After recovery of the microspheres from the harvested tissue samples, the dye is extracted and quantified by fluorescence spectrophotometry. Fluorescent microspheres have been well documented in the literature.

The new Dye-Trak 'F' fluorescent microsphers were recently evaluated by the University of Washington Fluorescent Microsphere Resource Center (FMRC).

Dye-Trak 'F' microspheres and FluoSpheres® are manufactured under Triton Technology US patents 5253649, 5230343, and others pending. Dye-Trak is a registered trademark of Triton Technology Inc.<

Some FluoSphere dyes are covered by Molecular Probes US patents 5,187,288; and 5,248,782. FluoSpheres is a trademark of Molecular Probes Inc.

• Dye-Trak 'F' fluorescent microspheres (10 million 15 micron spheres in 10 ml)
• Dye-Trak 'F' fluorescent microspheres (20 million 15 micron spheres in 20 ml)
• FluoSpheres® Molecular Probes packaging (36 million 10 micron spheres in 10 ml)
• FluoSpheres® Molecular Probes packaging (10 million 15 micron spheres in 10 ml)
• FluoSpheres® Triton Technology packaging (20 million 15 micron spheres 20 ml)

Dye-Trak® is a proven non-radioactive method of measuring regional blood flow in experimental preparations. Polystyrene microspheres of highly uniform diameter are precision dyed with one of several possible colors. Using an injection of Dye-Trak® spheres into a perfusion line or the left atrium, regional blood flow can be determined. The spheres are recovered from tissue and blood samples by digestion and subsequent micro-filtration. The dyes are then recovered from the spheres within a known volume of a solvent and their concentrations determined by spectrophotometry. A free Excel macro is available to compute blood flow from the spectrophotometer readings and the tissue weights.

Dye-Trak VII+ is a new set of colors added to the present Dye-Trak® 5-color palette. The present set of colors will continue to be available for the time being. The new Dye-Trak VII+ colors have narrower sharper absorbance peaks, higher absorbance (typically 1.5AU/5000 in 100ul solvent) and more colors. We recommend that new users and present users beginning an new round of experiments use the Dye-Trak VII+ colors. There is a recommended color progression for the new colors that will yield the minimum overlap between colors for a given number of colors used. This same color progression is used in the free Excel matrix inversion macro which we supply.

Dye-Trak® microspheres are covered by Triton's US Patents 5,230,343 and 5,253,649.

A Dye-Trak® blood flow spreadsheet macro for Microsoft Excel has been designed specifically for easy and accurate determination of blood flow into tissues samples utilizing the spectrophotometer readings. This user friendly macro corrects the spectrophotometer readings for spectral overlap between colors and converts the spectrophotometer data and tissue weight information into blood flow output data.

The macro is available in several forms for various numbers of colors used. The macro is designed to use a specific set of colors for a given number of injections as shown in the table below. (The colors within a set can be injected in any order.) The macros is available in tow forms: with a Process Control color and without Process Control. The matrix inversion Excel macro is available free on request from Triton Technology.