The load bearing behaviour of both instruments is analysed and compared.
The correlations between items in the instrument were analysed by factor analysis and seemed to fit with the clinical features of breast cancer.
For the determination of the absolute copy numbers of the targets, serial dilutions of cloned plasmid standards with known concentration (determined photometrically using the Nanodrop instrument) were analysed on the same plate as the test samples.
The quantitative validity of the DESDE-LTC instrument was analysed using a database comprising 1339 services (BSICs), assessed by the core group.
Where appropriate, stained sections were scanned at 20× magnification using Aperio ScanScope CS instrument and were analysed in Spectrum (Aperio Vista, CA, USA).
Quantitative real-time PCR was run in triplicate on an ABI StepOne™ real-time PCR instrument and data were analysed using StepOne™ Software v2.0 (Applied Biosystems) according to (54).
The arrays were scanned on a GenePix 4000 A scanner (Axon Instruments, Foster City, CA, USA) and images were analysed by GenePix Pro 3.0 (Axon Instruments).
Flow cytometry was performed on a FACScan instrument (Becton Dickinson) and data were analysed with CellQuest Pro software (Becton Dickinson) or FlowJo software (Tree Star, Ashland, OR, USA).
The intensities of Cy5 and Cy3 fluorescence for every gene spot on the hybridised array were measured with a GenePix 4000B scanner (Axon Instrument, Austin, TX, USA), and were analysed with GenePix Pro 5.0 software (Axon Instrument).
To estimate the instrument's validity, criterion-related correlations were analysed.
