Quantification of fiber-like structures in time-lapse fluorescence microscopy images

Florian Poma

Bachelor Semester Project

Section of Computer Science, EPFL

July 2016

Abstract

Asymmetric division is crucial for the development of multicellular organisms. The embryo of the nematode C. elegans is a well-suited model system to analyze the mechanisms of asymmetric cell division. Using spinning disc confocal microscopy, we performed live imaging of green fluorescent-tagged force generation proteins of C. elegans zygotes. This revealed that such proteins form dynamic fiber-like structures as well as foci. This student project entails designing image-analysis algorithms and applying these methods to monitor the behavior of these structures in a quantitative manner over the sequence of images. The project will be implemented in Java as a ImageJ plugin.
Collaboration with Melina Scholze, Gonczy Lab (http://gonczy-lab.epfl.ch)