The analysis of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell populations (HSPCs) is fundamental in the understanding of normal hematopoiesis as well as in the management of malignant diseases, such as leukemias, and in their diagnosis and follow-up, particularly the measurement of treatment efficiency with the detection of measurable residual disease (MRD). In this study, I designed a 20-color flow cytometry panel tailored for the comprehensive analysis of HSPCs using a spectral cytometer. My investigation encompassed the examination of forty-six samples derived from both normal human bone marrows (BMs) and patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) along with those subjected to chemotherapy and BM transplantation. By comparing my findings to those obtained through conventional flow cytometric analyses utilizing multiple tubes, I demonstrate that my innovative 20-color approach enables a more in-depth exploration of HSPC subpopulations and the detection of MRD with at least comparable sensitivity. Furthermore, leveraging advanced analytical tools such as t-SNE and FlowSOM learning algorithms, I conduct extensive cross-sample comparisons with two-dimensional gating approaches. My results underscore the efficacy of these two methods as powerful unsupervised alternatives for manual HSPC subpopulation analysis. I expect that in the future, complex multi-dimensional flow cytometric data analyses, such as those employed in this study, will be increasingly used in hematologic diagnostics.
Keywords: acute myeloid leukemia; flow cytometry; hematopoiesis; leukemia; measurable residual disease; myelodysplastic syndrome; stem cells; unsupervised analysis.