Biotium's CellBrite™ NIR Cytoplasmic Membrane Dyes are ready-to-use dye delivery solutions that can be added directly to normal culture media to uniformly label cells in suspension or adherent cultures. Carbocyanine dyes label cytoplasmic membranes and intracellular membrane structures efficiently and permanently. They have been used as tracers in cell fusion, cellular adhesion, and migration applications due to their properties of low cytotoxicity and high resistance to intercellular transfer. However, the lipophilic nature of these dyes pose an obstacle to uniform cellular labeling. Although structurally related PKH dyes have been developed and optimized for cell labeling, the procedure requires multiple steps and subjects cells to an iso-osmotic mannitol loading medium.
