Exercise 15d: Changing plots in Prism

Go to parent GraphPad Prism statistical analyses

We have data coming from 6 mice before and after treatment. We have measured different variables:

• IGF concentrations in the serum
• insulin concentrations in the serum
• insulin concentrations in blood plasma measured after standard centrifugation
• insulin concentrations in blood plasma measured after fast centrifugation
• insulin concentrations in serum measured after 10 cycles of freeze/thawing

We'll work with the first two sets of measurements. Download the mice IGF data and the mice insulin data. We have given each mouse a name to keep track of the data that comes from one particular mouse.

In the end we want to see if the drug influences the concentrations of the hormones (so using a paired t-test on the two data sets), but for this exercise we will just focus on making the graphs.

Load the two data sets in Prism.
We will want to analyze the data with a t-test so importing each data set into a column table makes most sense. Create New data table + graph and choose to create a Column table. Select to Enter paired or repeated-measures data - each subject on a separate row. Import the IGF1 data set. Specify that the column titles are stored in Row 1. Do the same for the insulin data.

The order of the mice in the insulin data set is the same as in the IGV data set.

Copy the names of the mice from the IGV table and paste them in the insulin table.
First display the row titles in the insulin table: click the large button in the left corner of the table. select to Show row titles. Go to the IGV table, right click the column containing the row titles and select Copy: Go to the insulin table, right click the column containing the row titles and select Paste -> Paste data:

Make a scatter plot of individual data points (no lines or error bars) for both data sets.
click the graph of the IGV table and select to create a scatter plot. In the Plot scetion specify to plot No line or error bar'. Do the same for the insulin data.

At first sight, there is no easy way to color the data points of the same mouse in the same color. You could right click each point and select Format this point -> Symbol color.

In this way you could give each mouse a different color but you would have to repeat this for each column of each data set. Coloring of individual points is not something you can transfer between graphs using Magic. So this approach would take way too much time.

How to proceed then?
There are two possible approaches:

• instead of using different colors for each mouse, we label the data points with the names of the mice.
• we transform the column tables to grouped tables and make the plots for the grouped tables

Let's start with using the row titles as labels on the graph.

Label each point on the IGV graph with it's row title.
click the Format graph button in the Change section of the top toolbar. select to Change ALL data sets. select to Label each point with its row title.

This creates a graph where you can actually see which point comes from which mouse

Using the Magic button in the Change section of the top toolbar you could copy this chaacteristic to the graphs of all the other data sets.

But as you can see using the row titles on the graph creates a bit bit of a messy graph with a lot of text on top of each other. Coloring the data points according to the mouse they come from is a better solution.

To do this you have to transfer your data from column to grouped tables.

Create two grouped tables and transfer the IGV and insulin data to these tables.

Create New data table + graph and choose to create a Grouped table. Select to Enter and plot a single Y-value for each point. Right click the large button in the left corner of the IGV column table. Select to Select -> All. Right click the large button in the left corner of the IGV column table. Select to Copy. Go to the new grouped table, place your cursor in the upper left cell and right click. Select to Paste Transpose -> Paste Data. This is the format that we need for making the plot. Do the same for the insulin data.

Create a scatter plot with individual values for both tables.
Click the graph of the IGV grouped table and go to the Plot individual values tab. Select a Superimposed scatter plot. In the Plot scetion specify to plot No line or error bar'. Do the same for the insulin data.

You see that this plot is already doing what we want but instead of using different colors, it uses a different symbol for each mouse.

In the IGV plot set all symbols to circles.
Go to the graph of the IGV grouped table and click the Format graph button in the Change section of the top toolbar. Select to Change ALL data sets. In the Symbols section set the symbol to a filled circle.

In the IGV plot give each mouse a different color.
Go to the graph of the IGV grouped table and click the Format graph button in the Change section of the top toolbar. Select the mouse (data set) you want to change. In the Symbols section set the color of the symbol.

In contrast to the first approach (using Format this point) where we had to repeat the coloring for each column, the color is now automatically adjusted for both the before and the after data point.

Additionally, the first approach did not only have to repeated for each column but also for each data set. This is not the case now, we can copy the coloring to all the other data sets using the Magic tool.

Color the points in the insulin plot in exactly the same way.
Go to the graph of the insulin grouped table and click the Magic button in the Change section of the top toolbar. Select the IGV graph as the graph you want to use as an example. Colors in the insulin graph are automatically updated according to the settings in the IGV graph.