Note:
The results displayed when you click a borrowed capillary are the passing
results borrowed from the adjacent capillary. To determine the reason that a
capillary fails, view the spectral calibration report. See “View and print a
calibration report“ on page 107.
For all spectral calibration injections (even capillaries that are green in the
Overall row), evaluate the data as described in the next section.
Spectral Quality Value
A spectral Quality Value reflects the confidence that the individual dye emission
signals can be separated from the overall measured fluorescence signal. It is a
measure of the consistency between the final matrix and the data from which it was
computed. A Quality Value of 1.0 indicates high consistency, providing an ideal
matrix with no detected pull-up/pull-down peaks.
In rare cases, a high Quality Value can be computed for a poor matrix. This can
happen if the matrix standard contains artifacts, leading to the creation of one or more
extra peaks. The extra peaks cause the true dye peak to be missed by the algorithm,
and can lead to a higher Quality Value than would be computed with the correct
peak. Therefore, it is important to visually inspect the spectral calibration profile for
each capillary.
Condition Number
A Condition Number indicates the amount of overlap between the dye peaks in the
fluorescence emission spectra of the dyes in the dye set.
If there is no overlap in a dye set, the Condition Number is 1.0 (ideal conditions), the
lowest possible value. The condition number increases with increasing peak overlap.
The ranges that the software uses to determine if a capillary passes or fails are:
Dye set
Quality Value minimum
Condition Number
maximum
AnyDye
0.8 (default)
20.0 (default)
E
0.95
5.5
E5
0.95
6.0
F
0.95
8.5
G5
0.95
13.5
J6
0.95
8.0
Spectral Quality
Values and
Condition
Numbers
Chapter 6
Run calibrations and install checks
Run a spectral calibration
6
3500/3500xL Genetic Analyzer User Guide—Data Collection Software v3.1
113
