Automated Gating of Flow Cytometry Data using Rho Path Distance

http://www.genengnews.com/insight-and-intelligenceand153/flow-cytometry-goes-atomic/77899583/

Keyi WuProject Leader: Matthew Hirn

Flow Cytometry

Laser based

Used in:

cell counting

cell sorting

biomarker detection

indicates normal biological & pathogenic processes

protein engineering

Physical & chemical properties of cells

Diagnosis of health disorders http://www.scq.ubc.ca/flow-cytometry-a-technology-to-count-and-sort-cells/

Gating

Sequentially separate regions based on fluorescence intensity

Specific protocol exists for diagnostic and clinical purposes

Path Distance

rho -> 0 : shortest path measured purely based on adding local distance

rho -> Inf : distance defined by “worst” segment in path

Compute in Parallel

Divide data (size N) into sections each with less than a desired amount of points (n)

Define boundary points for all boxes

Calculate local and global distance within each box & for boundary points

Find path between points not in same box through boundary paths

Principal Component Analysis (PCA)

Linear dimensionality reduction technique

Finds dimension in which variance is maximal

Partitioning Data

Boxes PCA

Ratio of distance computed from parallel vs. regular

Future work

Increase efficiency of code

FlowCAP - Flow Cytometry: Critical Assessment of Population Identification Methods