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If LYSYS (any version) was capable of performing your specific analysis,
then CellQuest will most certainly be able to do the same analysis, and do
it more efficiently. "Simultaneous multiple gates" work exactly the same way
on LYSYS and CellQuest. Define your regions (CellQuest dropped trapezoidal
regions, but who used them anyway?), and then define your gates as logical
combinations of regions. CellQuest just has a different way of manipulating
regions. If you can adjust from CONSORT 30 to LYSYS, you can do the same
from LYSYS to CellQuest. (I remember griping about HP LYSYS II as an
upgrade from CONSORT 40 until I got used to it.) I've seen most flow
cytometry software, from MDADS to Attractors, and I would say that
awkwardness is in the eye of the beholder. :)
As far as other Mac recommendations, I only have experience with Paint-a-
Gate PRO and Attractors. The PRO version (Mac) is an upgrade from the PLUS
version (HP), which in turn is an upgrade from the original Paint-a-Gate
(VAX). The PRO version is highly efficient and has better support for
gating, spreadsheeting, batching, and printing, but still uses the basic
idea of using colors as "gates" and combination rules (anything in the "red
gate" and also in the "green gate" will become members of the "yellow
gate"), although each color can be used independently. In my opinion, PAG
PRO is best suited for 3-color analysis (or N-color analysis, N > 3, that
can be "gated down" to 3-color), or situations where truely irregular
gating needs to be done and polygons just won't cut it.
Attractors can be the most efficient way to analyze complex data, due to
its adaptive nature. As long as the populations you want to include (or
exclude) are well defined (i.e., not a "smear" or "shoulder", etc.), each
attractor ("movable gate" is an oversimplification) can adjust itself to
better classify its target population, without any intervention. My opinion
is that Attractors is best for routine and/or complex data that is well-
defined.
The bad news: the current versions of PAG PRO and Attractors report means/
medians in channel numbers only. The good news: since both can output
spreadsheet results, it is rather trivial to convert the channel numbers to
"linear equivalents" (for log-amplified data). I expect BDIS to include
a linear equivalents feature for both softwares sooner or later.
All of the PC software I have seen uses basically the same approach as PC-
LYSYS (although I think Cytomation is working on a neural net approach).
Since you indicated that your analysis is mostly quantitative, perhaps you
would like to check out Eric Martz's MFI program (for DOS). It is available
from http://www.bio.umass.edu/mcbfacs/flowcat.html. Otherwise, you can pick
and choose from several PC programs from Verity, Phoenix, and others.
/\/\/\_ Eric Van Buren, vanburen%flovax.dnet@rocdec.roc.wayne.edu
\ \ \ Karmanos Cancer Institute and Wayne State University,
\_^_/ Immunology & Microbiology, Detroit, Michigan
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