title: TANGO: a generic tool for high-throughput 3D image analysis for studying nuclear organization.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The cell nucleus is a highly organized cellular organelle that contains the genetic material. The study of nuclear architecture has become an important field of cellular biology. Extracting quantitative data from 3D fluorescence imaging helps understand the functions of different nuclear compartments. However, such approaches are limited by the requirement for processing and analyzing large sets of images.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Here, we describe Tools for Analysis of Nuclear Genome Organization (TANGO), an image analysis tool dedicated to the study of nuclear architecture. TANGO is a coherent framework allowing biologists to perform the complete analysis process of 3D fluorescence images by combining two environments: ImageJ (http://imagej.nih.gov/ij/) for image processing and quantitative analysis and R (http://cran.r-project.org) for statistical processing of measurement results. It includes an intuitive user interface providing the means to precisely build a segmentation procedure and set-up analyses, without possessing programming skills. TANGO is a versatile tool able to process large sets of images, allowing quantitative study of nuclear organization.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  TANGO is composed of two programs: (i) an ImageJ plug-in and (ii) a package (rtango) for R. They are both free and open source, available (http://biophysique.mnhn.fr/tango) for Linux, Microsoft Windows and Macintosh OSX. Distribution is under the GPL v.2 licence.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  thomas.boudier@snv.jussieu.fr
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
authors.affiliation: CNRS UMR7196, INSERM U565, MNHN, 43 rue Cuvier 75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ollion
authors.forename: Julien
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cochennec
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Loll
authors.forename: Christophe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Escudé
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Boudier
mesh_terms: D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000235:genetics / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D016678:Genome; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D012984:Software