Fluorescence-activated protoplast sorting for crop improvement

Major advances in omics, precision gene editing, and system biology approaches have stimulated renewed interest in flow cytometry-based sorting techniques in plant studies. So far, fluorescence-activated protoplast sorting (FAPS)-based techniques have been well established in many plant species, such as arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), rice (Oryza sativa), wheat (Triticum aestivum), canola (Brassica napus), carrot (Daucus carota), potato (Solanum tuberosum), and maize (Zea mays). Deploying flow cytometry and cell sorting for higher plants requires the production of single-cell suspensions from different tissue sources. It also requires fluorescence labelling of single cells such that they can be accurately analyzed and sorted.