Abstract
Selecting fluorochromes for polychromatic panels for flow cytometry is complex and time-consuming. Poorly designed panels can result in overlap between the emission spectra of the different fluorochromes, making their signals difficult to separate. While assessing all possible panels is simple to do programmatically, the combinatorial complexity of most real world problems renders brute force computation impractical. Here we present a novel complexity optimization algorithm for fast design of minimal spectral overlap fluorochrome combinations. To aid researchers in designing fluorochrome panels we implemented the algorithm in a web server, Spectracular, that also considers instrument laser configuration and allows users to define various constraints related to antibody-fluorochrome availability and marker co-expression.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
Contact information, Section for Bioinformatics, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Kemitorvet, Building 204, 2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark, lronn{at}dtu.dk
Funding, This work was funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (grant 8048-00078B to LRO).
