Novel image analysis approach quantifies morphological characteristics of 3D breast culture acini with varying metastatic potentials.
Prognosis of breast cancer is primarily predicted by the histological grading of the tumor, where pathologists manually evaluate microscopic characteristics of the tissue. This labor intensive process suffers from intra- and inter-observer variations; thus, computer-aided systems that accomplish this assessment automatically are in high demand. We address this by developing an image analysis framework for the automated grading of breast cancer in in vitro three-dimensional breast epithelial acini through the characterization of acinar structure morphology. A set of statistically significant features for the characterization of acini morphology are exploited for the automated grading of six (MCF10 series) cell line cultures mimicking three grades of breast cancer along the metastatic cascade. In addition to capturing both expected and visually differentiable changes, we quantify subtle differences that pose a challenge to assess through microscopic inspection. Our method achieves 89.0% accuracy in grading the acinar structures as nonmalignant, noninvasive carcinoma, and invasive carcinoma grades. We further demonstrate that the proposed methodology can be successfully applied for the grading of in vivo tissue samples albeit with additional constraints. These results indicate that the proposed features can be used to describe the relationship between the acini morphology and cellular function along the metastatic cascade.
Department of Biology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180, USA.
Lindsey
L
McKeen Polizzotti
Basak
B
Oztan
Chris S
CS
Bjornsson
Katherine R
KR
Shubert
Bülent
B
Yener
George E
GE
Plopper
D061354:Acinar Cells / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D000818:Animals; D001940:Breast / Q000166:cytology* / Q000196:embryology; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D039422:Integrin alpha3 / Q000032:analysis / Q000378:metabolism; D039503:Integrin alpha6 / Q000032:analysis / Q000378:metabolism; D051379:Mice; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D060388:Support Vector Machine; D014183:Transplantation, Heterologous
D039422:Integrin alpha3; D039503:Integrin alpha6