PLoS ONE (Jan 2024)

Enhancing reproducibility in single cell research with biocytometry: An inter-laboratory study.

  • Pavel Fikar,
  • Laura Alvarez,
  • Laura Berne,
  • Martin Cienciala,
  • Christopher Kan,
  • Hynek Kasl,
  • Mona Luo,
  • Zuzana Novackova,
  • Sheyla Ordonez,
  • Zuzana Sramkova,
  • Monika Holubova,
  • Daniel Lysak,
  • Lyndsay Avery,
  • Andres A Caro,
  • Roslyn N Crowder,
  • Laura A Diaz-Martinez,
  • David W Donley,
  • Rebecca R Giorno,
  • Irene K Guttilla Reed,
  • Lori L Hensley,
  • Kristen C Johnson,
  • Audrey Y Kim,
  • Paul Kim,
  • Adriana J LaGier,
  • Jamie J Newman,
  • Elizabeth Padilla-Crespo,
  • Nathan S Reyna,
  • Nikolaos Tsotakos,
  • Noha N Al-Saadi,
  • Tayler Appleton,
  • Ana Arosemena-Pickett,
  • Braden A Bell,
  • Grace Bing,
  • Bre Bishop,
  • Christa Forde,
  • Michael J Foster,
  • Kassidy Gray,
  • Bennett L Hasley,
  • Kennedy Johnson,
  • Destiny J Jones,
  • Allison C LaShall,
  • Kennedy McGuire,
  • Naomi McNaughton,
  • Angelina M Morgan,
  • Lucas Norris,
  • Landon A Ossman,
  • Paollette A Rivera-Torres,
  • Madeline E Robison,
  • Kathryn Thibodaux,
  • Lescia Valmond,
  • Daniel Georgiev

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314992
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 19, no. 12
p. e0314992

Abstract

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Biomedicine today is experiencing a shift towards decentralized data collection, which promises enhanced reproducibility and collaboration across diverse laboratory environments. This inter-laboratory study evaluates the performance of biocytometry, a method utilizing engineered bioparticles for enumerating cells based on their surface antigen patterns. In centralized and aggregated inter-lab studies, biocytometry demonstrated significant statistical power in discriminating numbers of target cells at varying concentrations as low as 1 cell per 100,000 background cells. User skill levels varied from expert to beginner capturing a range of proficiencies. Measurement was performed in a decentralized environment without any instrument cross-calibration or advanced user training outside of a basic instruction manual. The results affirm biocytometry to be a viable solution for immunophenotyping applications demanding sensitivity as well as scalability and reproducibility and paves the way for decentralized analysis of rare cells in heterogeneous samples.