title: Analysis of grayscale characteristics in images of labeled microtubules from cultured cardiac myocytes.
abstract: Microtubules of cardiac myocytes depolymerize after a hypoxic insult or treatment with colchicine. However, little attention has been paid to quantifying changes in microtubule distribution when using fluorescent images. We converted fluorescence images of labeled microtubules in H9C2 cardiac myocytes to grayscale images, then filtered the images to remove any noise, and used grayscale histograms to quantify features of the images. The results show that parameters such as the mean, variance, skewness, kurtosis, energy, and entropy can be used to quantitatively describe the distribution of microtubules in cells. Quantitative characteristics of microtubule distribution were similar after culturing cells under hypoxic conditions or after treatment with colchicine. These results parallel those described for neonatal rat cardiac myocytes following ischemia and hypoxia. In addition, we provide a method for internal segmentation of the cells, which revealed that microtubular depolymerization was more evident near the cell membrane following hypoxia or colchicine treatment.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burns and Combined Injury,Institute of Burn Research,Southwest Hospital,The Third Military Medical University,Chongqing 400038,China.
authors.forename: Yongming
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Dang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burns and Combined Injury,Institute of Burn Research,Southwest Hospital,The Third Military Medical University,Chongqing 400038,China.
authors.forename: Xiaodong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lan
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burns and Combined Injury,Institute of Burn Research,Southwest Hospital,The Third Military Medical University,Chongqing 400038,China.
authors.forename: Qiong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burns and Combined Injury,Institute of Burn Research,Southwest Hospital,The Third Military Medical University,Chongqing 400038,China.
authors.forename: Lingfei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burns and Combined Injury,Institute of Burn Research,Southwest Hospital,The Third Military Medical University,Chongqing 400038,China.
authors.forename: Yuesheng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Huang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002460:Cell Line; D003078:Colchicine / Q000378:metabolism; D000860:Hypoxia; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D008870:Microtubules / Q000378:metabolism*; D032383:Myocytes, Cardiac / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000187:drug effects; D051381:Rats; D013194:Staining and Labeling / Q000379:methods; D050257:Tubulin Modulators / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D050257:Tubulin Modulators; D003078:Colchicine
keywords: depolymerization