Miltenyi, 130-111-570, DAPI Staining Solution

Background information
DAPI (4',6-diamino-2-phenylindole, dihydrochloride) is a fluorescent nucleic acid stain that binds to minor grove A-T rich regions of double-stranded DNA. It is essentially excluded from viable cells, but can penetrate cell membranes of dead or dying cells. However, at high concentrations or prolonged incubation times DAPI may still enter viable cells.
Therefore, DAPI is used for evaluation of cell death and apoptosis of unfixed cells in flow cytometry. Additionally, DAPI may be used as a nuclear counterstain of fixed cells in imaging or flow cytometry or for determination of DNA content in cell cycle analysis.
The fluorescence emission for DNA-bound DAPI increases about 20-fold, with an emisssion maximum of 460 nm. DAPI binds also RNA with an emission maximum of 500 nm and lower emission intensity. With an excitation maximum of 358 nm DNA-bound DAPI can be excited by an ultraviolet (UV) laser or a violet (405 nm) laser and detected within the blue fluoresence.

Overview
The DAPI Staining Solution is a ready-to-use reagent suitable for the exclusion of dead and apoptotic cells from flow cytometric analysis. Other applications of DAPI include cell cycle analysis and nuclear counterstaining in immunofluorescence microscopy.