Abstract
This protocol provides instructions to improve flow cytometry analysis of marrow/peripheral blood cells by avoiding erythrolytic solutions, density gradients, and washing steps. We describe two basic approaches for identifying cell surface antigens with minimal sample perturbation, which have been successfully used to identify healthy and pathologically rare cells. The greatest advantage of these approaches is that they minimize the unwanted effect caused by sample preparation, allowing for improved study of live cells at the point of analysis. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Petriz et al. (2018).