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Abstract Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is a highly heterogeneous disease with a diverse range of abnormal myeloid subpopulations resulting in challenges in clinical diagnosis and treatment. Many methods such as flow cytometry are used to provide precise information for risk stratification and treatment methods. Flow cytometry utilizes the expression patterns of cellular markers to characterize the high diversity in AML subpopulations with high sensitivity and specificity. This coupled with rapid analysis timelines allows for flow cytometry to be an excellent tool for the identification of AML lineage and progression through both phenotypic analysis and difference from normal. As AML lineage and disease progression are predictors of residual disease and relapse; the need for effective and accurate characterization of AML populations is critical. Here, Champions Oncology has developed a high-complexity 18-color flow cytometry panel to identify AML subpopulations at high resolution. We have characterized AML samples to evaluate the expression of phenotypic markers and their heterogeneity. Utilizing primary AML samples, we have evaluated the stability of AML subpopulations to understand how delayed analysis, such as what is seen in clinical trials, may impact marker expression and observed key populations were stable for up to 72 hours after collection. In addition to stability, understanding the lower limits of detection is critical for AML patients, particularly for minimum residual disease and relapse screening. The use of a flow cytometric panel again provides an excellent tool for these tests due to the single cell nature that allows for the interrogation of individual populations with primary AML subpopulations detected at a range of 10−3 to 10−4. Finally, with hundreds of never-passaged AML models characterized and cryopreserved by both flow cytometry and sequencing at Champions Oncology, we investigated how the cryopreservation processes impacted the expression of AML subpopulations. We have observed similar expression and detection of AML populations following cryopreservation indicating that these models can be utilized as an excellent tool for further studies. Collectively, our data indicates that the panel developed at Champions Oncology provides robust data analysis of AML subpopulations and can be an excellent tool for the tracking of AML disease progression in the clinic. Citation Format: Jessica Pearl, Elena Bruni, Haoting Hsu, Brandon Walling, Karin Abarca-Heidemann. Development of a high complexity flow cytometry panel to assess minimum residual disease in acute myeloid leukemia abstract. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts) ; 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84 (6Suppl): Abstract nr 7468.
PEARL et al. (Fri,) studied this question.