LiveCellMiner: A new tool to analyze mitotic progression

PLoS ONE, vol. 17, pp. e0270923

Abstract

Live-cell imaging has become state of the art to accurately identify the nature of mitotic and cell cycle defects. Low- and high-throughput microscopy setups have yield huge data amounts of cells recorded in different experimental and pathological conditions. Tailored semi-automated and automated image analysis approaches allow the analysis of high-content screening data sets, saving time and avoiding bias. However, they were mostly designed for very specific experimental setups, which restricts their flexibility and usability. The general need for dedicated experiment-specific user-annotated training sets and experiment-specific user-defined segmentation parameters remains a major bottleneck for fully automating the analysis process. In this work we present LiveCellMiner, a highly flexible open-source software tool to automatically extract, analyze and visualize both aggregated and time-resolved image features with potential biological relevance. The software tool allows analysis across high-content data sets obtained in different platforms, in a quantitative and unbiased manner. As proof of principle application, we analyze here the dynamic chromatin and tubulin cytoskeleton features in human cells passing through mitosis highlighting the versatile and flexible potential of this tool set.

Authors 4

1. Daniel Moreno-Andrés corresponding Aachen Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology Medical School

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology, Medical School, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

2. Anuk Bhattacharyya Aachen Institute of Imaging & Computer Vision

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Imaging and Computer Vision, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

3. Anja Scheufen Aachen Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology Medical School

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology, Medical School, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

4. Johannes Stegmaier corresponding Aachen Institute of Imaging & Computer Vision

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Imaging and Computer Vision, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany