Boundaries in gravitational and magnetic activation of cells for sorting.

Standard deviations in the distribution of radii of cells and particles are considered to arrive at realistic limits in the use of gravitational and magnetic activation of cells for sorting. Using a specific fractionation design, it is shown that the radius of particles (or cells) may be fractionated down to a precision of +/- 0.76%. Although higher precisions could be obtained with other designs, the number of particles available per fraction is inversely proportional to the precision desired. Thus, one would prefer to keep the precision as moderate as permissible by the experiments.