Cell tracking for live-cell microscopy using an activity-prioritized assignment strategy

IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, Applications and Systems (IPAS), pp. 1–7

Abstract

Cell tracking is an essential tool in live-cell imaging to determine single-cell features, such as division patterns or elongation rates. Unlike in common multiple object tracking, in microbial live-cell experiments cells are growing, moving, and dividing over time, to form cell colonies that are densely packed in mono-layer structures. With increasing cell numbers, following the precise cell-cell associations correctly over many generations becomes more and more challenging, due to the massively increasing number of possible associations. To tackle this challenge, we propose a fast parameter-free cell tracking approach, which consists of activity-prioritized nearest neighbor assignment of growing (expanding) cells and a combinatorial solver that assigns splitting mother cells to their daughters. As input for the tracking, Omnipose is utilized for instance segmentation. Unlike conventional nearest-neighbor-based tracking approaches, the assignment steps of our proposed method are based on a Gaussian activity-based metric, predicting the cell-specific migration probability, thereby limiting the number of erroneous assignments. In addition to being a building block for cell tracking, the proposed activity map is a standalone tracking-free metric for indicating cell activity. Finally, we perform a quantitative analysis of the tracking accuracy for different frame rates, to inform life scientists about a suitable (in terms of tracking performance) choice of the frame rate for their cultivation experiments, when cell tracks are the desired key outcome.

Authors 6

1. Karina Ruzaeva Aachen AICES Graduate School

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   AICES Graduate School, RWTH Aachen,Aachen,Germany

   AICES Graduate School, RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany

2. Jan-Christopher Cohrs Aachen AICES Graduate School

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   AICES Graduate School, RWTH Aachen,Aachen,Germany

   AICES Graduate School, RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany

3. Keitaro Kasahara

   Forschungszentrum Jülich

   Affiliation as printed

   IBG-1: Biotechnology, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH,Jülich,Germany

4. Dietrich Kohlheyer

   Forschungszentrum Jülich

   Affiliation as printed

   IBG-1: Biotechnology, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH,Jülich,Germany

5. Katharina Nöh

   Forschungszentrum Jülich

   Affiliation as printed

   IBG-1: Biotechnology, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH,Jülich,Germany

6. Benjamin Berkels Aachen AICES Graduate School

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   AICES Graduate School, RWTH Aachen,Aachen,Germany

   AICES Graduate School, RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany