We have studied shape with a particular focus on the zebrafish model system. The shape is an essential appearance of the phenotype of a biological specimen and it can be used to read out a... Show moreWe have studied shape with a particular focus on the zebrafish model system. The shape is an essential appearance of the phenotype of a biological specimen and it can be used to read out a current state or response or to study gene expression. So accurate shape analysis requires a precise shape description. Moreover, a sufficiently large sampling size of the specimens is necessary to ensure a justified and unbiased shape analysis. The latter is very important for high-throughput in compound screening. Therefore, top performance in zebrafish analysis requires high-throughput imaging (HTI). To deal with HTI, we aim to design an elaborate and well-performing HTI architecture. For the essential operations we need computational approaches to obtain the 2D/3D shape representations that are precise and yet can be acquired fast. The quality of the obtained shape descriptions will be validated in a straightforward manner with scalar primitives, i.e., the volume and surface area of a 3D shape. These primitives serve as 3D measurements for a robust primary shape assessment in the phenotype characterisation. Using only shape description is not sufficient, e.g., for high-resolution imaging on tissue and cellular level, so texture should be considered to complement and enhance the shape analysis. Show less
In this thesis, we discuss solutions of phenotype description based on the microscopy image analysis to deal with biological problems both in 2D and 3D space. Our description of patterns goes... Show moreIn this thesis, we discuss solutions of phenotype description based on the microscopy image analysis to deal with biological problems both in 2D and 3D space. Our description of patterns goes beyond conventional features and helps to visualize the unseen in feature dataset. These solutions share several common processes which are based on similar principles. Furthermore, we notice that advanced features and classier strategies can help us improve the performance of the solutions. The biological problems that we have studied include the endocytosis routing using high-throughput screening in 2D and time and 3D geometrical representation from biological structures. Show less
High Throughput (HT) methods are high volume experimental approaches that are common in the fields of the life-sciences. The instrumentation for these methods differs per application. We will focus... Show moreHigh Throughput (HT) methods are high volume experimental approaches that are common in the fields of the life-sciences. The instrumentation for these methods differs per application. We will focus on the HT methods that are concerned with imaging. The aim of this thesis is to find robust methods for object extraction and analysis. We focus on the Computer Science aspects of such analysis, namely pattern recognition. Pattern Recognition can be seen in the context of object recognition and data mining. Both aspects will be described in this thesis. We present a framework for segmenting and recognizing the objects of interest based on Template Matching. This approach was designed for an application in the HT screening of zebrafish embryos. All proposed methods are fully automated. We further elaborate on the segmentation algorithms to apply these in software that can be used in a HT context to derive measurements. Then we apply the software on a real life problem involving zebrafish infected with Mycobacterium marinum. Show less
