Analysis of immune cell function using in vivo cell shape analysis and tracking

In this paper, a tracking and shape analysis algorithm for neutrophils of zebrafish is proposed. The neutrophils were fluorescently labelled with Green Fluorescent Protein and observed in a time-lapse three dimensional video through a confocal microscope. The neutrophils were segmented from the background and tracked with a keyhole model of movement. Morphological analysis was performed by calculating the volume of the segmented objects together with the measurements of sphericity, tortuosity and average number of end points of the centre lines. We speculate that these measurements are related to the activation of the neutrophils as part of the process of killing and digesting bacteria. The algorithm is fully automatic and should provide a robust framework of analysis for posterior analysis of the neutrophils in zebrafish.