Combined model-based and region-adaptive 3D segmentation and 3d co-localization analysis of heterochromatin foci

Abstract

The nuclear organization of euchromatin and heterochromatin is important for genome regulation and cell function. Therefore, the analysis of heterochromatin formation and maintenance is an important topic in biological research. We introduce an automatic approach for analyzing heterochromatin foci in 3D multi-channel fluorescence microscopy images. The approach combines model-based segmentation with region-adaptive segmentation and performs a 3D co-localization analysis in different nuclear regions. Our approach has been successfully applied to 275 3D two-channel fluorescence microscopy images of mouse fibroblast cells. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012.