Flow Cell

A flow cell is a plate that has a high density of short DNA strands attached to its surface.

Figure 1. Flow cell is showing a high density of short DNA strand attached to the surface.

There are short DNA molecules attached to the surface of the flow cell. As you can observe from the image, there are many of these short DNA molecules creating a very high-density area. There are two different short DNA molecules attached to the flow cell surface, shown as green and yellow poles. Each of these short DNA molecules binds specifically to one type of adapter because their sequences are complementary. One adapter will bind to the green molecule, whereas the other adapter will bind to the yellow molecule.