Development of an Automated Online Flow Cytometry Method to Quantify Cell Density and Fingerprint Bacterial Communities.

Cell density is an important factor in all microbiome research, where interactions are of interest. It is also the most important parameter for the operation and control of most biotechnological processes. In the past, cell density determination was often performed offline and manually, resulting in a delay between sampling and immediate data processing, preventing quick action.

Automatic, fast, hierarchical, and non-overlapping gating of flow cytometric data with flowEMMi v2.

Flow cytometry has become a powerful technology for studying microbial community dynamics and ecology. These dynamics are tracked over long periods of time based on two-parameter community fingerprints consisting of subsets of cell distributions with similar cell properties. These subsets are highlighted by cytometric gates which are assembled into a gate template.