A parameter estimation method for fluorescence lifetime data

Daniel Sewell; Hajin Kim; Taekjip Ha; Ping Ma

doi:10.1186/s13104-015-1176-y

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A parameter estimation method for fluorescence lifetime data

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

A parameter estimation method for fluorescence lifetime data

Daniel Sewell, Hajin Kim, Taekjip Ha and Ping Ma

BMC research notes, Vol.8(1), pp.230-230

06/09/2015

DOI: 10.1186/s13104-015-1176-y

PMCID: PMC4467687

PMID: 26054354

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https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-015-1176-yView

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Abstract

When modeling single-molecule fluorescence lifetime experimental data, the analysis often involves fitting a biexponential distribution to binned data. When dealing with small sample sizes, there is the potential for convergence failure in numerical optimization, for convergence to local optima resulting in physically unreasonable parameter estimates, and also for overfitting the data. To avoid the problems that arise in small sample sizes, we have developed a gamma conversion method to estimate the lifetime components. The key idea is to use a gamma distribution for initial numerical optimization and then convert the gamma parameters to biexponential ones via moment matching. A simulation study is undertaken with 30 unique configurations of parameter values. We also performed the same analysis on data obtained from a fluorescence lifetime experiment using the fluorophore Cy3. In both the simulation study and the real data analysis, fitting the biexponential directly led to a large number of data sets whose estimates were physically unreasonable, while using the gamma conversion yielded estimates consistently close to the true values. Our analysis shows that using numerical optimization methods to fit the biexponential distribution directly can lead to failure to converge, convergence to physically unreasonable parameter estimates, and overfitting the data. The proposed gamma conversion method avoids these numerical difficulties, yielding better results.

Fluorescent Dyes - chemistry

Carbocyanines - chemistry

DNA - chemistry

Sample Size

Computer Simulation

Humans

Fluorescence

Spectrometry, Fluorescence - statistics & numerical data

Photons

Models, Statistical

Details

Title: Subtitle: A parameter estimation method for fluorescence lifetime data
Creators: Daniel Sewell - Department of Statistics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 725 S. Wright St., Champaign, IL, 61820, USA. dsewell2@illinois.edu
Hajin Kim - Center for Soft and Living Matter, Institute for Basic Science, Ulsan, Republic of Korea. hajin.kim.kr@gmail.com
Taekjip Ha - Department of Physics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 1110 W. Green St., 61801, Urbana, IL, USA. tjha@illinois.edu
Ping Ma - Department of Statistics, University of Georgia, 101 Cedar Street, Athens, GA, 30602, USA. pingma@uga.edu
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: BMC research notes, Vol.8(1), pp.230-230
DOI: 10.1186/s13104-015-1176-y
PMID: 26054354
PMCID: PMC4467687
NLM abbreviation: BMC Res Notes
ISSN: 1756-0500
eISSN: 1756-0500
Publisher: England
Language: English
Date published: 06/09/2015
Academic Unit: Biostatistics; Public Policy Center (Archive)
Record Identifier: 9983997300402771

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