Dataset Information

Streamlined particle quantification (SParQ) plug-in is an automated fluorescent vesicle quantification plug-in for particle quantification in Fiji/ImageJ.

ABSTRACT: The endolysosomal system is critical for protein homeostasis in cells. A common way of studying protein transport and degradation (e.g. via autophagy) is by labeling vesicular structures such as endosomes, autophagosomes, lysosomes, or model substrates with fluorescent tags or by fluorescent antibody staining. Detailed analyses require quantification of hundreds of structures under various conditions. Typically, the images are analyzed individually with software such as the widely available Fiji/ImageJ (https://imagej.net/Fiji/Downloads), adjusting and thresholding each image and channel independently, which is a very labor intensive and fastidious task. To streamline the process, we developed a plug-in that, integrated into Fiji, enables the automated quantification of vesicular (i.e. punctate) structures. Importantly, the process still allows the operator to evaluate and have control over all the phases of quantification process.

Abbreviations

CMA: chaperone-mediated autophagy; CSV: comma separated values; eMI: endosomal microautophagy; Fiji: Fiji is just ImageJ; MA: macroautophagy; SParQ: Streamlined Particle Quantification.

SUBMITTER: Mesquita A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8386606 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Streamlined particle quantification (SParQ) plug-in is an automated fluorescent vesicle quantification plug-in for particle quantification in Fiji/ImageJ.

Mesquita Ana A Pereira Joao J Jenny Andreas A

Autophagy 20191127 9

The endolysosomal system is critical for protein homeostasis in cells. A common way of studying protein transport and degradation (e.g. via autophagy) is by labeling vesicular structures such as endosomes, autophagosomes, lysosomes, or model substrates with fluorescent tags or by fluorescent antibody staining. Detailed analyses require quantification of hundreds of structures under various conditions. Typically, the images are analyzed individually with software such as the widely available Fiji ...[more]

PMID: 31752589

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Project description:Automatic image reconstruction is critical to cope with steadily increasing data from advanced microscopy. We describe here the Fiji macro 3D ART VeSElecT which we developed to study synaptic vesicles in electron tomograms. We apply this tool to quantify vesicle properties (i) in embryonic Danio rerio 4 and 8 days past fertilization (dpf) and (ii) to compare Caenorhabditis elegans N2 neuromuscular junctions (NMJ) wild-type and its septin mutant (unc-59(e261)). We demonstrate development-specific and mutant-specific changes in synaptic vesicle pools in both models. We confirm the functionality of our macro by applying our 3D ART VeSElecT on zebrafish NMJ showing smaller vesicles in 8 dpf embryos then 4 dpf, which was validated by manual reconstruction of the vesicle pool. Furthermore, we analyze the impact of C. elegans septin mutant unc-59(e261) on vesicle pool formation and vesicle size. Automated vesicle registration and characterization was implemented in Fiji as two macros (registration and measurement). This flexible arrangement allows in particular reducing false positives by an optional manual revision step. Preprocessing and contrast enhancement work on image-stacks of 1nm/pixel in x and y direction. Semi-automated cell selection was integrated. 3D ART VeSElecT removes interfering components, detects vesicles by 3D segmentation and calculates vesicle volume and diameter (spherical approximation, inner/outer diameter). Results are collected in color using the RoiManager plugin including the possibility of manual removal of non-matching confounder vesicles. Detailed evaluation considered performance (detected vesicles) and specificity (true vesicles) as well as precision and recall. We furthermore show gain in segmentation and morphological filtering compared to learning based methods and a large time gain compared to manual segmentation. 3D ART VeSElecT shows small error rates and its speed gain can be up to 68 times faster in comparison to manual annotation. Both automatic and semi-automatic modes are explained including a tutorial.

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Dataset Information

Streamlined particle quantification (SParQ) plug-in is an automated fluorescent vesicle quantification plug-in for particle quantification in Fiji/ImageJ.

Abbreviations

Publications

Streamlined particle quantification (SParQ) plug-in is an automated fluorescent vesicle quantification plug-in for particle quantification in Fiji/ImageJ.

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