Automatic quantitative analysis of morphology of apoptotic HL-60 cells
Date
2014-01
Authors
Liu, Yahui
Lin, Wang
Yang, Xu
Liang, Weizi
Zhang, Jun
Meng, Maobin
Rice, John R.
Sa, Yu
Feng, Yuanming
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Abstract
Morphological identification is a widespread procedure to assess the presence of apoptosis by visual inspection of the morphological characteristics or the fluorescence images. The procedure is lengthy and results are observer dependent. A quantitative automatic analysis is objective and would greatly help the routine work. We developed an image processing and segmentation method which combined the Otsu thresholding and morphological operators for apoptosis study. An automatic determination method of apoptotic stages of HL-60 cells with fluorescence images was developed. Comparison was made between normal cells, early apoptotic cells and late apoptotic cells about their geometric parameters which were defined to describe the features of cell morphology. The results demonstrated that the parameters we chose are very representative of the morphological characteristics of apoptotic cells. Significant differences exist between the cells in different stages, and automatic quantification of the differences can be achieved.
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Citation
EXCLI Journal; 13: p. 19-27