Abstract
BackgroundThe ability of a cell to change shape is crucial for the proper function of many cellular processes, including cell migration. One type of cell migration, referred to as amoeboid motility, involves alternating cycles of morphological expansion and retraction. Traditionally, this process has been characterized by a number of parameters providing global information about shape changes, which are insufficient to distinguish phenotypes based on local pseudopodial activities that typify amoeboid motility.ResultsWe developed a method that automatically detects and characterizes pseudopodial behavior of cells. The method uses skeletonization, a technique from morphological image processing to reduce a shape into a series of connected lines. It involves a series of automatic algorithms including image segmentation, boundary smoothing, skeletonization and branch pruning, and takes into account the cell shape changes between successive frames to detect protrusion and retraction activities. In addition, the activities are clustered into different groups, each representing the protruding and retracting history of an individual pseudopod.ConclusionsWe illustrate the algorithms on movies of chemotaxing Dictyostelium cells and show that our method makes it possible to capture the spatial and temporal dynamics as well as the stochastic features of the pseudopodial behavior. Thus, the method provides a powerful tool for investigating amoeboid motility.
Highlights
The ability of a cell to change shape is crucial for the proper function of many cellular processes, including cell migration
Others, including perimeter, area, roundness and body orientation, describe cellular morphology as the cell migrates. These parameters primarily provide global information about motility-induced cell shape changes. Though they can be used to distinguish between strains, they may be insufficient to distinguish phenotypes based on pseudopodial
Amoeboid motility is a complex cellular process driven by highly-organized cytoskeletal dynamics involving alternating cycles of pseudopodial protrusions and retractions
Summary
The ability of a cell to change shape is crucial for the proper function of many cellular processes, including cell migration. One type of cell migration, referred to as amoeboid motility, involves alternating cycles of morphological expansion and retraction. This process has been characterized by a number of parameters providing global information about shape changes, which are insufficient to distinguish phenotypes based on local pseudopodial activities that typify amoeboid motility. Others, including perimeter, area, roundness and body orientation, describe cellular morphology as the cell migrates These parameters primarily provide global information about motility-induced cell shape changes. Though they can be used to distinguish between strains, they may be insufficient to distinguish phenotypes based on pseudopodial
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