Data analysis and presentation in flow cytometry

Abstract

The advancement of flow cytometry technology together with a series of novel developments in hardware and software have facilitated both phenotypic and functional characterizations of different cell types. In addition, the availability of many monoclonal antibodies and an expanding range of dye-chemistry have made multi-parameter flow cytometry possible for simultaneous measurements of large numbers of cells with better information of complex cellular networks such as the immune system. Although it has the advantage of being a fast, objective and quantitative, but running polychromatic flow cytometry is a complex process with many challenges particularly in the data analysis. The purpose of this communication is to describe several types of presentation and analysis of both univariate and multivariate datasets.