[Mathematical methods in flow cytometry: the problem of evaluating DNA histograms of partially synchronous cell populations].

There is presented a procedure for determining the phase fractions in a cell population (i.e. the fractions of the G1-, S- and G2 + M-cells) from the corresponding DNA histogram obtained by flow cytometry. The evaluation procedure can regard arbitrary apriori information about the model parameters. It is based on a mathematical model of the DNA distribution for a growing cell population which contains the phase fractions and some further values as parameters. The parameter estimations rest on the Maximum-Likelihood-Principle by which the parameters of the theoretical model must be determined in such a way that the measured histogram corresponds to a maximum probability. As a consequence of the model flexibility especially the S-phase fraction which can be determined independently by labeling techniques, can be regarded as a fixed predetermined value. Such apriori information enhances the preciseness of the parameter estimation. The applications have shown that the determination of the S-phase fraction by means of flow cytometry can be very unprecise especially under partial synchronization. For the application of the evaluation programs (programming language ALGOL) the histograms must be free of cell detritus and clumping.