John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University

CFSE covalently labels long-lived intracellular molecules with the fluorescent dye, carboxyfluorescein. As such, when a CFSE-labeled cell divides, its progeny have half the amount of fluorescence, which can thereby be used to assess cell division. This article describes the procedures typically used for labeling mouse lymphocytes with CFSE.

The ability to monitor T cell responses in detail in vivo is important for the development of our understanding of the immune response. Here we describe the use of fluorescent target arrays (FTAs) in an in vivo T cell assay that assesses >250 parameters simultaneously by flow cytometry.