Introduction: FACS (fluorescence-activated cell sorting), or flow cytometry, was developed in 1971 by Leonard Herzenberg's team at Stanford University. Under continuous development, this technology enables single-cell multiparametric analysis and sorting, based on physical properties of cells and/or their relative expression levels of specific glycoproteic epitopes and metabolites.
State of the art: Recently, the use of fluorescent antibodies specific for phosphorylated epitopes - or "phospho-epitopes" - within proteins of interest has further extended the range of FACS analyses. This new application, dubbed "phospho-FACS", has quickly become a tool of choice for delineating intracellular phosphorylation cascades.
Perspectives: In both basic research and clinical research, the application of phospho-FACS to cellular subsets from blood or the periphery, whether frequent or rare, enables the discovery of pathological biomarkers and therapeutic innovation.
Conclusions: Thanks to its rapid implementation and its ability to generate single-cell data, the phospho-FACS technique features numerous advantages compared to preexisting analytical methods for intracellular phosphorylation cascades.