Automatic Segmentation and Quantitative Analysis of Irradiated Zebrafish Embryos

Abstract

Radiotherapy is one of the most common methods to treat different cancer cells in clinical application despite having harmful effects on healthy tissues. Radiobiological experiments are very important to determine the irradiation-caused acute and chronic effects to define the exact consequences of different irradiation sources. Photon irradiation has been used on zebrafish embryos, a very new in vivo and appropriate model system in radiobiology. After irradiation, dose-dependent morphological changes were observable in the embryos. These morphological deteriorations were measured manually by biologist researchers during three weeks, which was an extremely time demanding process (15 min per image). The aim of this project was to automate this evaluating process, to save time for researchers and to keep the consistence and accuracy of the evaluation. Hence, an algorithm was developed and used to detect the abnormal development of zebrafish embryos.