Patent ID: 8116984

Claim:
A kit for automated performance analysis to quantify CD64 and CD163 expression in a leukocyte and calibration for a flow cytometer, said kit used with a flow cytometer, blood specimens, a programmable computer and a display screen, said kit comprising: (a) at least one or more monoclonal antibodies directed to CD64 conjugated to fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) or similar fluorochromes; (b) at least one or more monoclonal antibodies directed to CD163 conjugated to phycoerythrin or similar fluorochromes; (c) a suspension of polystyrene microbeads with at least one or more fluorochromes, one of which is identical to that conjugated to the CD64 monoclonal antibodies, environmentally sensitive to the same factors affecting the fluorescence of antibodies bound to cells, and traceable to an external standard, such as the NIST SRM 8640; (d) at least one or more fluorochromes, said fluorochrome having a useful life, said useful life being designated in said kit; and (e) software operating on said computer comprising 1) information on the fluorescence intensity of each fluorescent reagent and microbeads, said software operating with said computer to control calculation of calibration and fluorescence information tailored to said microbeads, and display on said screen an expiration date correlated to the useful life of said microbeads to an operator calibrating said flow cytometer with said microbeads, wherein said software ceases operation on said computer at said expiration date, whereupon said flow cytometer cannot be calibrated with said software and said microbeads and the operator must utilize another suspension of microbead populations and software tailored for use on said computer with said another suspension to calibrate the flow cytometer; 2) the ability to acquire data on blood specimens using fluorescence signals, FS and SS and thus, automatically gate and smooth the data, locate peaks in fluorescence intensity corresponding to each microbead and cell specific populations, construct linear regression plots, determine the fluorescence threshold intensity of the flow cytometer, create histograms; 3) the ability to find cell specific clusters; 4) the ability to perform automated data normalization; and 5) the ability to calculate the CD64 and CD163 index on specific cell populations.