Optimization of the flow cytometry - (Nov/24/2014 )

Hi 

I am new to flow cytometry, and I am going to use it to determine the expression of surface receptor. The flow in the lab was optimized to analyze blood cells not cell lines, so do I need to optimize/ change settings of the instrument to work for my cells?

Run some unstained cells first and adjust the voltage settings so you can comfortably see the population in the FSC/SSC and differentiate it from the debris. Next, run a stained sample and adjust the voltage settings for the respective fluorescence.

Do I have to optimize it even if I am going to use the flow to detect the fluorescence only not the size of the cell ?

Does it has effect on the  surface receptor fluorescence detection ? 

But you need cell size and granularity (FSC/SSC) to exclude debris, for example. And I'd adjust the fluorescence channel voltage so I can comfortably discriminate stained and unstained cells.