Populations and Gates

The fundamental objects created and manipulated in a routine are population-defining one- and two-dimensional gates that select and process the events of a population. A unique classification system was developed which allows you to define and analyze a population of interest, selected from the total events acquired. You define this population by a set of gates which specify characteristics of the cells to be included in the population. Following classification, you can analyze this population completely separately from the rest of the acquired events. One advantage of this procedure is that you do not need to purify cell populations prior to analysis. On the screen, you define populations by graphical manipulation of linear or polygon gates in a set of one-dimensional histograms and two-dimensional dot plots.

The association between a population and the gate set that defines it is the color of the gates. Gates of the same color define the same population of events. The gates can be placed on histograms using the subset of parameters which best defines the population.

Up to 8 populations can be defined simultaneously. Populations need not be conceived of as mutually exclusive groups.

Smart Gates

One of the most important benefits of using FCAP-list lies in the use of the so-called Smart Gates. In contrast to the traditional "fixed-region" gates the Smart Gates are able to offset their positions and correct day to day or experiment to experiment shifts in populations caused by instrument drift, differences in sample preparation, etc. The main advantage using Smart Gates is the ability given you to perform automatic data analyis routines on a series of slightly different samples. The use of Smart Gates eliminates the need for manual gate readjustments.