Comparison of a new digital imaging technique for yeast cell counting and viability assessments with traditional methods

Abstract

In this study, a new rapid automated yeast cell counter was assessed. The cell counter (Aber Countstar) uses bright-field microscopy and a dye-exclusion method. This study's aim was to determine whether this method could be effectively employed in an automated slide based counter to assess viability and to compare this method with results from traditional microscopy and from a radio-frequency impedance-based instrument (Aber Compact Lab Yeast Analyser). Excellent correlations were observed between methods. The instrument performed well over a range of yeast concentrations (R 2 = 0.9913 correlation between automated and manual live cell concentrations). Cell diameters compared well with manual recordings. The instrument was also able to track decreasing cell viability in conjunction with the haemocytometer at viabilities over 20%. The radio-frequency impedance based instrument exhibited the smallest deviation between 10 repeats, followed by the cell counter (SD: ± 1.08 × 10 7 ; ± 5.97 × 10 7 , respectively). Manual counts using a haemocytometer exhibited the largest error between repeats (SD: ± 2.63 × 10 8 ) and also required substantially more time (2.28 min) compared with the cell counter (7 sec). The automated cell counter successfully reduced inter-operator errors, a major hindrance with manual analyses. Tests carried out at a brewery in the UK demonstrated that the cell counter provides consistent counts for assorted yeast strains. External tests highlighted the instrument's ease of use and consistency among different strains of brewing yeast and various stages in the brewing process.

Facile Preparation of WO3−x Dots with Remarkably Low Toxicity and Uncompromised Activity as Co‐reactants for Clinical Diagnosis by Electrochemiluminescence

“…As shown in Table , the spiked samples with different cell concentrations were measured by the proposed ECL cytosensor, and the recovery was in the range of 92.7 %–100.0 %. Meanwhile, for comparison, both a commercial cell analyzer (Countstar BioTech) and the as‐prepared cytosensor were applied to detect MCF‐7 cells in the same samples. It should be noted that the as‐prepared cytosensor could be used to selectively identify CTC not only in the serum sample but also in the whole blood.…”

Real-time monitoring of the budding index in Saccharomyces cerevisiae batch cultivations with in situ microscopy

“…Image cytometry is a combination of image microscopy and the observation of light scattering data from cells that have been stained in order to directly assess viability. These methods are less time-consuming and avoid some of the typical errors of completely manual procedures, but certainly not all [ 9 ]. Sampling (automatic or manual) and staining is still required, when fluorescent markers cannot be applied, e.g.…”

Facile Preparation of WO3−x Dots with Remarkably Low Toxicity and Uncompromised Activity as Co‐reactants for Clinical Diagnosis by Electrochemiluminescence

“…As shown in Table 2, the spiked samples with different cell concentrations were measured by the proposed ECL cytosensor, and the recovery was in the range of 92.7 %-100.0 %. Meanwhile, for comparison, both a commercial cell analyzer (Countstar BioTech) [42] and the as-prepared cytosensor were applied to detect MCF-7 cells in the same samples. It should be noted that the as-prepared cytosensor could be used to selectively identify CTC not only in the serum sample but also in the whole blood.…”