The Experiment Annotator

Clinical sites and high throughput research labs need to improve their level of automation, to significantly decrease repetitive tasks, and to enable large scale tests. FlowJo's Experiment Annotator makes setting up an experiment easier and faster, and saves time on experiments that must be repeated.

The Experiment Annotator is a graphical user interface for describing an experiment's staining setup using attribute/value pairs. Its point/click/drag/drop interface is quick and intuitive. In addition to recording the experimental setup, the Experiment Annotator also allows the user to edit sample descriptions after data collection.

Once the plate is annotated, the arrangement of cells can be entered into FlowJo's Workspace (File > Move Wells to Workspace) or saved and opened on the Cytek cytometer for acquisition of matching samples. Samples with matching sample well enumeration will be annotated according to the plate layout.

1. Drag Keywords and their values from this list onto the numbered squares representing sample wells. Double click on an attribute or value in this column if you want to edit it.
2. Add to the list of attribute/value pairs by typing in these boxes. Click the plus sign to add to the list. The highlighted pair, Investigator/Dr. Jones was added using this tool.
3. Attributes can also be dragged to staging wells, then moved en masse to the grid. First, drag attributes to the Staging Well. This well has four attributes added. Then, highlight the target sample well or wells. Then click the staging well to copy its contents to the sample well. More staging wells can be added by selecting Edit > Add Staging Well from the menu.
4. Click on the upper left square to select all sample wells. Or go to Edit > Select all. Select a whole column or row at once by clicking on the numbers 1-12 or letters A-H. Hold the control button while clicking to select multiple sample wells. Select any single well to deselect all others.
5. This window displays the contents of the selected well, in this case well E5 with the red arrow. E5 was filled by selecting it, then double clicking the staging well with the red 3.

The File menu includes the option to

• Save your annotation and reopen it at a later date.
• Write DiVa Acquisition File, This writes an XML file that when opened on the Cytek machine, will annotate the sample data during acquisition.
• Move Wells to Workspace, transfers all wells with assigned attributes to the workspace.

The Edit menu also includes:

• Clear, This command empties the selected well or wells of their current content.
• Add Keywords from File, Attribute/Value pairs separated by a carriage return in a .txt file can be imported to populate the list window with your own customised list of parameters.
• Clear Keywords, Empties the Attribute/Value list.
• Toggle Notation, changes the markings within the cells from Row/Column notation (A1, A2, A3 for example) to numbers only, 1-96, left to right, top to bottom.
• Set Plate Dimensions, Enter the number of rows and columns you want in your plate.