Computational analysis for single cell imaging

Fluorescence microscopy is an important tool for observing individual cells and molecules. However, one of the challenges researchers face is the subsequent analysis of the collected images. A single image can contain hundreds of individual cells and their labeled constituents; A single time-lapse experiment over 16 hours can easily contain hundreds of such images, making analysis laborious and time consuming. Hence, computational approaches are required for quantitative analysis.

Here at BioFrontiers Advanced Light Microscopy core, I develop computational tools, mainly in the MATLAB programming language, to extract data from these images, as well as carrying out downstream analysis. In this talk, I will highlight several toolboxes recently developed with the Cameron lab to track and study the inheritance and lifecycle of a single bacterial microcompartment: the carboxysome. Most of the code from this talk will be made publicly available.