Answers, protocols and safety data sheets for our products, and a direct line to our technical team.
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Use a cryogenic vial pre-filled with the Cytodelics Stabiliser (the volume of Stabiliser equals the planned blood volume).
Internal testing confirmed stable results after more then 3 years when stored at ≤-80 °C. Storage at -20 °C is meant for short periods only (see "How long can samples stored in the Stabiliser be kept?"). Independent data from the Allen Institute (Seattle) show stable immune profiles in blood stored in the Stabiliser at -80 °C for up to 2.5 years (one healthy donor): Parthasarathy et al., Cytometry A, 2026.
The full steps are in the protocol "WBCS P01 - Sample stabilisation" (see Documents below).
Samples can be stored at -80 °C or below, according to our internal testing, for more than 3 years. At -20 °C or below we recommend a maximum of 3 weeks, and then moving the sample to -80 °C. Storage at -20 °C was validated in our laboratory for up to 2 months, but real freezers differ in their actual temperature (for example when they are full or iced up), so we recommend the shorter period.
Independent data go further: the Allen Institute (Seattle) stored whole blood in the Cytodelics Stabiliser at -80 °C for up to 2.5 years and found stable immune profiles after processing with the Cytodelics Whole Blood Processing Kit (blood of one healthy donor, 36- and 35-marker spectral flow cytometry panels). Read the paper: Parthasarathy et al., Cytometry A, 2026.
If you plan a study with long storage times, please ask us and we help you plan the controls.
Choose a cryogenic vial with a nominal volume of about three times the planned blood sample, so that blood and Stabiliser (1:1) fit with room for mixing. Label the vial at room temperature before filling, so that the label sticks well. Pre-filled vials are available from 100 µL to 2000 µL of Stabiliser; see the size table on the Stabiliser page.
No special device is required. The sample can go directly to -80 °C, or onto dry ice and then to the -80 °C freezer. Storage at -80 °C or below is better than -20 °C: ordinary freezers vary in their real temperature, especially when they are full or iced up. Storage at -20 °C is meant as a short-term solution only (a maximum of 3 weeks is recommended).
The protocol calls for a 10-minute incubation at room temperature, after which the sample is frozen. In practice, freezing within 10-120 minutes after mixing is recommended. In a test with a sample left on the bench, surface markers were stable for 24 hours; intracellular signalling (for example phospho-proteins) was not tested for longer waiting times. If your study needs long waiting times, please ask us and we help you design the protocol.
Thaw the vial by heating it quickly in a water bath or on a heat block set to 37 °C (about 1 minute), and transfer the mixture of blood and Stabiliser directly into the Fixation buffer. Continue with protocol P01 "Processing after sample thawing" (see Documents below).
No. The Stabiliser preserves the protein state of the cells at the moment of freezing, so cells are not viable after thawing (a low viability after thawing is expected). For functional assays use fresh blood, for example with the WB-STIM buffer, and then stabilise the sample with the Stabiliser or fix it with the Fix/Lyse kit. We recommend this approach as it gives the results as close to physiological response as possible.
Buffers for freezing whole blood with living cells are under development.
Yes. Protocol P06 "Plasma collection and whole blood stabilisation" describes it: centrifuge the blood in the collection tube at 1000-2000 g for 10-15 minutes, remove the plasma (about 50-75 % of the column) without touching the cell layers, replace the removed volume with PBS, resuspend gently, and then stabilise the sample 1:1 with the Stabiliser as in protocol P01.
Use the human Stabiliser (product IDs starting with h, for example hWBCS002-100) for human blood and the murine Stabiliser (starting with m, for example mWBCS002-100) for mouse and rat blood. Our customers confirmed that the Stabiliser for human blood is suitable, for example, for non-human primates (e.g., Cynomolgus), dogs or pigs. If you more information, please contact us for advice.
All protocols are in the Documents section below.
Scale all volumes to the volume of blood:
Example: 1.0 mL of blood needs 10 mL of Fixation buffer, 40 mL of LYSIS buffer and 40 mL of WASH buffer. The protocols contain a table with tube sizes for 100 µL to 1 mL of blood. When you process samples preserved with the Stabiliser, do not count the volume of the Stabiliser as blood.
Incubate at room temperature for at least 15-20 minutes after adding the LYSIS buffer, until the red cells are completely lysed. The exact timing is impacted by temperature and/or RBCs status.
Centrifuge at 300 g for 5-10 minutes. With a taller liquid column or a smaller rotor use the longer time; do not increase the g-force. Aspirate the supernatant carefully and do not decant, so that you do not lose the pellet. Details for each step and tube size are in the protocols.
You may stain without a further washing step and acquire the sample, but we recommend testing the compatibility of your antibody panel first. Before staining, centrifuge the sample at 300-400 g for about 5 minutes and remove some of the supernatant to optimise the volume of the antibody cocktail and the antibody consumption.
Yes. After fixation the cells are robust and can be stained overnight or longer. Longer staining at a lower antibody concentration reduces antibody consumption and background. Test a range of dilutions (titration) with your own antibodies: some clones work well at far lower concentrations than the manufacturer recommends.
We do not recommend it. The reagents of the Fix/Lyse kit were developed as one system, and cells fixed with it are already well preserved; the additional harsh fixation of standard permeabilisation kits can damage the samples. Intracellular staining works with the kit as it is. If you want to test a gentle saponin-based buffer, do so on a small number of samples first.
Yes, use a fixable viability dye and add it before the fixation step. The dye needs at least 20-30 minutes of incubation; in a short stimulation experiment add it at the beginning of the stimulation. We tested the eBioscience Fixable Viability Dye eFluor 780: the best concentration was about eight times lower than the manufacturer recommends, so run a titration in your own hands.
Yes. The document "Validated antibody clones" is in the Documents section below.
Yes. The WB-STIM buffer is compatible with the Whole Blood Cell Stabiliser and the Whole Blood Fix/Lyse kit. Stimulate fresh whole blood in WB-STIM, then either freeze it with the Stabiliser, or fix it with the Fix/Lyse kit (protocol P03 for time-critical work) and optionally freeze the processed cells in CRYO#20. This lets you collect samples now and stain and acquire later.
Collect the blood in heparin-coated tubes. EDTA may interfere with cell signalling.
Yes. WB-STIM is designed to keep the nutrient level and the conditions close to physiological, so whole blood can be stimulated for more than 24 hours; up to 7 days tested (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.08.544193v1). It can be used with almost any stimulant.
CRYO#20 is a buffer for long-term freezing of fixed cells: leukocytes processed with the Whole blood processing kit, and PBMCs or cultured cells fixed with the PBMC fixation kit. Do not use it for living cells and do not use it instead of the Stabiliser.
CRYO#20 protects cells during the cryogenic process, and allows a repeated freezing and thawing of the samples. That allows you to re-use the same sample, if needed.
Store CRYO#20 at room temperature.
Freezing: after the last wash leave 50-100 µL of buffer on the pellet and resuspend the fixed cells. Add 250-500 µL of CRYO#20 to 1-5 × 10^6 cells, mix well and place the tube at -80 °C. A freezing container is not needed.
Thawing: thaw in a water bath at 30-37 °C within 1-3 minutes (not longer than 5 minutes), spin at 300 g for 5-7 minutes, leave 50-100 µL of buffer, add the antibody cocktail, stain for 30-60 minutes on ice or over-night, wash twice with 2-3 mL of cold PBS and acquire. Testing and titration each new antibody clone or fluorochrome is a recommended laboratory practice. Consider every application, i.e., do not rely on titration done with a different timing as those might dramatically differ.
Fix 2-5 × 10^6 PBMCs in 0.5 mL of Fixation buffer for 10 minutes at room temperature (5-20 minutes is possible if you want to optimise). For more cells keep the ratio: 1 mL of Fixation buffer for 4-10 × 10^6 cells, and 1.2 volumes of STOP buffer for 1 volume of Fixation buffer. Polystyrene tubes are preferred over polypropylene tubes, because they reduce the risk of losing the pellet.
After the washing steps the fixed cells can stay in WASH buffer in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, or they can be frozen at -80 °C or below in CRYO#20 buffer for later processing.
Keep the Fix-concentrate at 5-8 °C.
Keep the Fix-dilution buffer, STOP, WASH and CRYO#20 buffers at room temperature.
Reconstituted STOP and WASH buffers can be stored for 12 months at room temperature.
Unused Fixation buffer (Fix-concentrate mixed with Fix-dilution buffer) keeps for up to 24 hours at 4-8 °C.
The optimal sample volume and the number of samples to collect depend on your application and expectations. It is possible to extract cells from less than 25 µL of blood preserved with our Cytodelics Whole Blood Cell Stabiliser.
However, for a deeper immune profiling, 100 µL of blood or more is recommended. Collecting and storing 250-500 µL is mostly sufficient to isolate more than 1 million cells. If you collect precious samples (e.g., longitudinal or rare samples) we recommend to collect more and bio-bank the remaining samples. You can freeze more aliquots and decide later how many should be processed further (e.g., based on other analyses).
If you want to preserve more than 2 mL of blood from a single sample, we recommend distributing it in multiple cryovials.
The Cytodelics Stabiliser and the Cytodelics Whole Blood Fix/Lyse kit are compatible with most anticoagulants, including EDTA, citrate, and Heparin. For blood stimulation using our WB-STIM buffer, we recommend blood collection in Heparin-coated tubes, as EDTA and citrate might interfere in cell signaling processes.
Information about the recommended storage conditions can be found in the documentation associated with each product, which is available on each product page. The recommended storage conditions and relevant safety information is also printed on each bottle.
The shelf-life of Cytodelics products and their components vary. General storage information can be found in the documentation available on each product page. An expiration date is also printed on each bottle.
All products, except for WB-STIM buffer, are dispatched with expiration more than 24 months. With a proper storage, reagents are stable beyond their minimal expiration period. However, we recommend re-testing the reagents if planned to be used after the expiration.
We believe that you will find so many application of our products in your protocols that the reagents will never reach their expiration date in your hands.
Although we are convinced that our products can find so many uses in your lab, it might happen that you will reach the expiration date. Maybe long vacation? Or too many requests from reviewers, so you didn't make to the lab for months? No need to panic. Our products are designed to last if properly stored. The expiration date printed on the bottle is the minimum expiration period. But we recommend to re-test the reagents before running an important experiment. You never know what is happening in the lab when your are not there. If you have any doubts, you can always contact us at info@cytodelics.com.
Store pre-filled tubes in the refrigerator at +5 to +8 °C for the best stability (up to 2 years); at room temperature (20-25 °C) they keep for up to 12 weeks. For transport use ice packs and plastic bags; by air keep the tubes upright. The temperature should stay under 25 °C, and ideally under 15 °C.
Our products are generally designed to be used in conjunction with single-cell proteomics technologies like flow- and mass cytometry. If you have a question related to a specific technological application, please get in touch with us at info@cytodelics.com. We always recommend that you verify whether our products work with your particular technology of interest before you begin large-scale sample collection.
Yes. All liquid biopses can be stored and processed with our products. We have evaluated Cytodelics products for sample types like bone marrow and mouse splenocytes, for example. Do not hesistate contacting us If you're interested in using our products for other sample types: please get in touch with us here for further guidance.
Yes, you can. We have a Cytodelics Stabiliser specifically for preserving mouse and rat blood (Murine alternative of the Whole Blood Cell Stabiliser). In addition, customers have confirmed that it works well for sampling blood in non-human primates (e.g., Cynomolgus). If you’re working with another model organism, please get in touch with us at info@cytodelics.com for additional guidance.
Yes, our PBMC fixation kit is optimised to preserve PBMCs that are isolated from whole blood through density gradient centrifugation. It can also be used to fix other purified cell types and most cell lines.
These Cytodelics products are primarily designed to preserve proteins. While some RNA integrity is retained, the preserved samples are not compatible with later RNA analysis through PCR, for example. However, we’re currently working on products for the preservation of RNA as well, so stay tuned!
Yes. Describe your study (sample type, volume, markers, how long the sample waits before processing and where it is processed) in the form "Ask a technical question" below. We answer by e-mail and, if useful, arrange a meeting to adapt a protocol to your needs.
Add the product sizes you need to your quote list and send the request. You receive a written quote by e-mail; nothing is ordered or charged by sending the request. For questions write to info@cytodelics.com.
Open a product, choose the size and press "Add to quote". Your list stays in your own browser until you send it. On the quote list you see combination offers (for example the Stabiliser together with the Fix/Lyse kit for a discounted price) and the volume steps ("Order more, pay less per unit"). Fill in your details, send the request, and you receive a confirmation and later our written quote.
Prices depend on your country, the order size and the shipping. We therefore send a written quote for your list instead of showing a price list. Quotes are usually prepared quickly; if you do not hear from us, please check your spam folder or write to info@cytodelics.com.
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Add the products to your quote list and send the request, and we reply with a quote for your country. You can also write to info@cytodelics.com.
Yes, most likely!
We have distributors in the following countries:
China: Biohub International Trade Co. Ltd (http://www.qfbio.com/)
Czech Republic: Sven Biolabs (https://svenbiolabs.cz/)
Slovak Republic: Sven Biolabs (https://svenbiolabs.cz/)
Austria: THP Medical Products (https://www.thp.at/)
If your country is not included in the list, we ship worldwide from Sweden. To inquire about shipping to your country, please contact us.
As part of your order, you can choose your preferred delivery method and schedule. We generally use FedEx, DHL, or UPS for international shipments, and most orders ship immediately.
To avoid processing delays, please ensure you provide all requested information—including your phone number, which is required by all shipping carriers. Once your order has shipped, we will send you a tracking number so you can follow its progress. If you experience any delays or have any questions, please contact us at info@cytodelics.com.
In general, you can change the delivery address or shipment date up until the point that your package has been handed over to the courier. Contact us at info@cytodelics.com to change anything related to the shipping of your order.
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Our payment terms are generally 15 days, but this may vary.
An invoice for your order will be sent to you via email soon after your order has been placed. If you need another copy, you can contact us at info@cytodelics.com and request one.
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