About Cy5

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Cyanine 5 (Cy®5) is a red-emitting fluorophore that can be excited by the 633 or 640 nm red laser and captured with a 660/20 nm bandpass filter. Cy5 has an excitation peak at 649 nm and an emission peak at 667 nm, and is spectrally similar to APC and Alexa Fluor 647. Cy5 is bright and can be a used for a variety of applications. A very common use for Cy5 is as the acceptor molecule in the PE-Cy5 tandem fluorophore where the broad excitation of PE paired with the bright emission of Cy5 and the long stoke’s shift make PE-Cy5 an asset in flow cytometry. While Cy5 can be used for flow cytometry, APC has been a mainstay in the application and leaves little room for other dyes with similar emission properties. Despite this, it does often get used in the form of PE-Cy5, which is a very popular fluorophore for flow cytometry. Other applications of Cy5 alone include imaging, microscopy, and genomic applications where the dye is conjugated to a protein or nucleic acid probe. Cyanine dyes are known to be photostable for microscopy or imaging, as well as being resistant to harsh dehydration and embedding conditions that come with mounting tissue sections. Additionally, Cy5 comes in a wide variety of modified formats that allow for easy conjugations. The Cyanine dye family are registered trademarks of GE Healthcare.

Dyes similar to Cy5 based on emission

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Alexa Fluor 647 APC ATTO 647 ATTO 647N BactoView Live Red Brilliant Blue 660-P2 BDY 650-X SE BODIPY 650/665 Brilliant Ultraviolet 661 Calcein Deep Red AM CellBrite Fix 640 CellBrite Red CellBrite Steady 650 CellROX Deep Red CellTrace Far Red CellVue Maroon CellVue Plum CF640R CF647 CF647ST CF650 Chromeo 642 CoraLite Plus 647 CPN680 Red Cyanine 5 SE Cyanine 647 CypHer5E DiD DY-520XL DY-521XL DyLight 633 DyLight 649 DyLight 650 Dyomics 647 eFluor 660 eFluor 670 Cell Proliferation ER-ID Red ExoBrite 640/660 EV Membrane Stain Flash Phalloidin NIR 647 FluoProbes647H Fura Red AM (Ca2+free) FVS660 FxCycle Far Red HiLyte 647 iFluor 647 IRDye 650 iRFP 670 Janelia Fluor 646 LipidSpot 610 Live/Dead Fix Far Red LysoView 633 LysoView 640 MaxLight 650 MemBrite Fix 640/660 MemBrite Fix ST 650/665 MitoView 650 NeuroVue Maroon Nile Blue NirFP NL 637 NovaFluor Blue 660 / 120S NovaFluor Blue 660 / 40S NovaFluor Red 660 NovaFluor Yellow 660 NucSpot 640 NucSpot Far-Red Oyster 650 SureLight P3 PE-Alexa 647 PE-Cy5 PE-Dyomics 647 PerCP PhenoVue 641 Mitochondrial Stain PromoFluor 647P ReadiLink 647-674 ROS-ID Red RPE-CF647T Seta-650-NHS Seta-PerCP-680 Seta-R-PE-670 StarBright UltraViolet 665 SureLight APC SureLight PE Cyanine 5.0 Thiazole Red Homodimer TO-Pro 3 TOTO-3 Tri-Color Vio667 VioBright 667 VivaFix 649/660