Analysis of flow cytometric aneuploid DNA histograms: validation of an automatic procedure against ad hoc experimental data

In this paper we present an improved version of a method for the automatic analysis of flow cytometric DNA histograms from samples containing a mixture of two cell populations. The procedure is tested against two sets of ad hoc experimental data, obtained by mixing cultures of cell lines in different known proportions. The potentialities of the method are enlightened and discussed with regard to its capability of recovering the population percentages, the DNA index and the G0/G1, S, G2+M phase fractions of each population. On the basis of the obtained results, the procedure appears to be a promising tool in the flow cytometric data analysis and, in particular, in problems of diagnosis and prognosis of tumor diseases.