An imaging workflow for characterizing phenotypical change in large histological mouse model datasets.
BACKGROUND
This paper presents a workflow designed to quantitatively characterize the 3D structural attributes of macroscopic tissue specimens acquired at a micron level resolution using light microscopy. The specific application is a study of the morphological change in a mouse placenta induced by knocking out the retinoblastoma gene.


RESULTS
This workflow includes four major components: (i) serial section image acquisition, (ii) image preprocessing, (iii) image analysis involving 2D pair-wise registration, 2D segmentation and 3D reconstruction, and (iv) visualization and quantification of phenotyping parameters. Several new algorithms have been developed within each workflow component. The results confirm the hypotheses that (i) the volume of labyrinth tissue decreases in mutant mice with the retinoblastoma (Rb) gene knockout and (ii) there is more interdigitation at the surface between the labyrinth and spongiotrophoblast tissues in mutant placenta. Additional confidence stem from agreement in the 3D visualization and the quantitative results generated.


BACKGROUND
The source code is available upon request.
Mosaliganti
Kishore
K
Department of Biomedical Informatics, The Ohio State University, 3190 Graves Hall, 333 West 10th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
Pan
Tony
T
Ridgway
Randall
R
Sharp
Richard
R
Cooper
Lee
L
Gulacy
Alex
A
Sharma
Ashish
A
Irfanoglu
Okan
O
Machiraju
Raghu
R
Kurc
Tahsin
T
de Bruin
Alain
A
Wenzel
Pamela
P
Leone
Gustavo
G
Saltz
Joel
J
Huang
Kun
K
D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D016161:Genes, Retinoblastoma; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D051379:Mice; D018345:Mice, Knockout; D008954:Models, Biological; D010920:Placenta / Q000033:anatomy & histology