AO/PI Yeast Viability Kit containing dilution buffer and fluorescent dye mixture for staining of live and dead Yeast cells
The ViaStain™ Yeast Live / Dead Cell Counting Kit enables the user to quantitatively distinguish live and dead yeast in pure cultures and in cultures containing debris such as corn mash using the Cellometer system. The kit contains a solution of the green-fluorescent nucleic acid stain, acridine orange, and the red-fluorescent nucleic acid stain, propidium iodide, and a dilution buffer. Propidium iodide is a membrane exclusion dye that only enters cells with compromised membranes while acridine orange penetrates all cells in a population. When both dyes are present in the nucleus, propidium iodide causes a reduction in acridine orange fluorescence by fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET). As a result, yeast with intact membranes stain fluorescent green and are counted as live, whereas yeast with compromised membranes only stain fluorescent red and are counted as dead when using the Cellometer system.