TIME-OPTIMIZED ANALYSIS OF SLIT-SCAN CHROMOSOME PROFILES ON A GENERAL-PURPOSE PERSONAL-COMPUTER

Slit-scan flow cytometry provides a method to analyze large numbers of metaphase chromosomes in a relatively short time due to morphological features. The high detection rate requires fast computing for on-line analysis. Up to now, this has been achieved using special-purpose com puters, parallel systems or other complex hardware. Here, we describe an algorithm that can be implemented on a general-purpose personal com puter. Digitized chromosome profiles can be classified by several crit eria especially for the detection of chromosome abnormalities in biolo gical dosimetry. A data set of approximately 4600 profiles was used. P rogramming in assembler results in an average computing time of about 600 mus per profile. Thus on-line evaluation of slit-scanning data app ears to become feasible for many flow cytometers running nowadays.