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Subjectivity and flow cytometric variability

Nature Reviews Immunology volume 12, page 396 (2012)Cite this article

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We read the Review article by Holden T. Maecker and colleagues (Standardizing immunophenotyping for the Human Immunology Project. Nature Rev. Immunol. 12, 191–200 (2012))1 with great interest. Over the years, scientists have built up expertise in different research fields through independent coordination. Continuous quality improvement is expected in many technical and scientific settings, which will require continued coordination to prevent the duplication of resources by the national and international organizations involved.

In 2008, the International Society for Analytical Cytology (ISAC) and other interested parties introduced a new recommendation for the recording and reporting of information about the experimental details of flow cytometry experiments, including samples, instrumentation and data analysis. This recommendation is known as the Minimum Information about a Flow Cytometry Experiment (MIFlowCyt)2, and it has been developed in a coordinated manner with checklists for other high-throughput experiments; together, these recommendations constitute the Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations (MIBBI) project3. Moreover, the United Kingdom National External Quality Assessment Service (UK NEQAS), the EuroFlow Consortium and the Subcommittee on Quality Assessment of Haematopoietic Stem Cell Grafts (established by the European Group for Bone Marrow Transplantation) facilitate a comprehensive external quality assessment service and provide guidelines on laboratory medicine for optimal patient care. Through education and the promotion of best practice, different supra-national organizations are working to improve the comparability and the reliability of the results obtained from flow cytometry (and other) experiments, wherever these are carried out. Although flow cytometry is mostly carried out in a research setting, the above-mentioned framework is also contributing to a decrease in variability in clinical studies.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gisela Pachn is at the Grup d'Investigació en Diabetis i Alteracions Metabòliques Associades, CIBERDEM, Institut d'Investigació Sanitària Pere i Virgili (IISPV), Tarragona 43007, Spain.,

    Gisela Pachón

  2. Isabel Caragol and Jordi Petriz are at the Vall d'Hebron Institut de Recerca (VHIR), Barcelona 08035, Spain.,

    Isabel Caragol & Jordi Petriz

Authors
  1. Gisela Pachón
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  2. Isabel Caragol
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  3. Jordi Petriz
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Correspondence to Jordi Petriz.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Pachón, G., Caragol, I. & Petriz, J. Subjectivity and flow cytometric variability. Nat Rev Immunol 12, 396 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nri3158-c1

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