Table 2. Differences of cell isolation methods

Characteristics	FACS	MACS	Hybrid
Surface antigens	Not essential	Essential	Not essential
Fluorescence cell labeling	Required	Not required	Required
Cell purity	High	Medium	High
Concurrent categorization of diverse groups	Possible	Not possible	Possible
Categorizing by varied levels of expression	Possible	Not possible	Possible
Cell separation	Trypsinize	Magnetic	Complex
Positive selection	Possible	Possible	Possible
Negative selection	Possible	Possible (low purity)	Possible
Multi marker selection	Possible	Very limited	Possible
Operation specificity	High	High	High
Equipment price	High	Low	High
Technical proficiency	Highly required	Low required	Highly required

FACS, fluorescence-activated cell sorting; MACS, magnetic-activated cell sorting.