Automated tracking of gene expression in individual cells and cell compartments
Automated tracking of gene expression in individual cells and cell compartments
复制标题
DOI：
10.1098/rsif.2006.0137
复制
发表时间：
2006-12-22
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
Kell, Douglas B.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Shen, Hailin;Nelson, Glyn;Kell, Douglas B.
许多细胞内信号转导过程涉及转录因子从细胞质到细胞核的可逆易位。荧光标记的蛋白质衍生物的出现彻底改变了细胞生物学，使得现在可以真实的跟踪这些蛋白质分子在单个细胞中的位置。然而，定量分析这些蛋白质在显微图像中的位置是非常耗时的。我们描述了CellTracker，一个软件工具，设计用于自动测量的细胞位置和荧光标记的蛋白质的强度。CellTracker在MS Windows环境中运行，可免费获得（http：//www.dbkgroup.org/celltracker/），并将自动细胞跟踪方法与针对这些应用程序优化的强大图像处理算法相结合。当在涉及核转录因子NF-κ B的应用中进行测试时，CellTracker在准确性方面与人工分析此类图像具有竞争力，但速度快20倍以上，即使在人类疲劳不是问题的小任务中也是如此。这将为基于时间推移的高内容筛选带来实质性好处。
Many intracellular signal transduction processes involve the reversible translocation from the cytoplasm to the nucleus of transcription factors. The advent of fluorescently tagged protein derivatives has revolutionized cell biology, such that it is now possible to follow the location of such protein molecules in individual cells in real time. However, the quantitative analysis of the location of such proteins in microscopic images is very time consuming. We describe CellTracker, a software tool designed for the automated measurement of the cellular location and intensity of fluorescently tagged proteins. CellTracker runs in the MS Windows environment, is freely available (at http://www.dbkgroup.org/celltracker/), and combines automated cell tracking methods with powerful image-processing algorithms that are optimized for these applications. When tested in an application involving the nuclear transcription factor NF-kappa B, CellTracker is competitive in accuracy with the manual human analysis of such images but is more than 20 times faster, even on a small task where human fatigue is not an issue. This will lead to substantial benefits for time-lapse-based high-content screening.