FlowCytoMonitoR: An R-Shiny Program for Advanced Monitoring Flow Cytometer Performance

Flow cytometers are highly sensitive scientific instruments that need to be in optimal condition to provide accurate and reliable data. To ensure consistent performance, cytometer performance is regularly assessed by measuring standardized reference particles during a quality control (QC) measurement. Cytometer manufacturers have developed dedicated modules in their operating software to monitor cytometer performance and award a pass or a fail for each QC to indicate if the instrument is performing to specifications. However, these are usually limited in their ease of use and data visualization options. For example, usually only a single parameter can be visualized and visualization over time is limited to 1 year or to the last baseline. Additionally, a shared interface to simultaneously monitor multiple cytometers from multiple manufacturers is not available. Furthermore, all instruments generate data that are not taken into account during QC, while these data can actually provide more insight in the performance of a flow cytometer and can allow early identification of problems. To facilitate more comprehensive analysis of instrument performance we have developed FlowCytoMonitoR, an interactive R-shiny program that does not require coding experience and allows users to analyze QC data in full detail for multiple instruments. The program is currently compatible with instruments from three different vendors (BD Biosciences, Beckman Coulter, and Cytek Biosciences) and allows visualization of all QC metrics. FlowCytoMonitoR has proved invaluable to our Shared Resource Laboratory (SRL) in identifying and potentially predicting problems, thereby increasing flow cytometer uptime and service quality.