Image Analysis of Gene Locus Positions Within Chromosome Territories in Human Lymphocytes

0506720 - BFÚ 2020 RIV CZ eng C - Conference Paper (international conference)
Stepka, K. - Falk, Martin
Image Analysis of Gene Locus Positions Within Chromosome Territories in Human Lymphocytes.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science. In: MATHEMATICAL AND ENGINEERING METHODS IN COMPUTER SCIENCE, MEMICS 2014. GERMANY: SPRINGER-VERLAG BERLIN, 2014 - (Hlineny, P.; Dvorak, Z.; Jaros, J.; Kofron, J.; Korenek, J.; Matula, P.; Pala, K.), Roč. 8934, č. 2014 (2014), s. 125-134. ISBN 978-3-319-14895-3. ISSN 0302-9743.
[9th International Doctoral Workshop on Mathematical and Engineering Methods in Computer Science (MEMICS). Telč (CZ), 17.10.2014-19.10.2014]
Institutional support: RVO:68081707
Keywords : selection method * deletion
OECD category: Computer sciences, information science, bioinformathics (hardware development to be 2.2, social aspect to be 5.8)

One of the important areas of current cellular research with substantial impacts on medicine is analyzing the spatial organization of genetic material within the cell nuclei. Higher-order chromatin structure has been shown to play essential roles in regulating fundamental cellular processes, like DNA transcription, replication, and repair. In this paper, we present an image analysis method for the localization of gene loci with regard to chromosomal territories they occupy in 3D confocal microscopy images. We show that the segmentation of the territories to obtain a precise position of the gene relative to a hard territory boundary may lead to undesirable bias in the results, instead, we propose an approach based on the evaluation of the relative chromatin density at the site of the gene loci. This method yields softer, fuzzier ´boundaries´, characterized by progressively decreasing chromatin density. The method therefore focuses on the extent to which the signals are located inside the territories, rather than a hard yes/no classification.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0297912