Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Engineering Science Building,
The University of Texas at Austin,
Austin, TX 78712-1084
bovik@ece.utexas.edu -
bevans@ece.utexas.edu
Paper (IEEE Explore) - Draft of Paper - Software - MFISH Database
Traditional chromosome imaging has been limited to grayscale images, but recently a 5-fluorophore combinatorial labeling technique (M-FISH) was developed wherein each class of chromosomes binds with a different combination of fluorophores. This results in a multi-spectral image, where each class of chromosomes has distinct spectral components. In this paper we develop new methods for automatic chromosome identification by exploiting the multispectral information in M-FISH chromosome images and by jointly performing chromosome segmentation and classification. We (1) develop a maximum likelihood hypothesis test that uses multi-spectral information, together with conventional criteria, to select the best segmentation possibility; (2) use this likelihood function to combine chromosome segmentation and classification into a robust chromosome identification system; and (3) show that the proposed likelihood function can also be used as a reliable indicator of errors in segmentation, errors in classification, and chromosome anomalies, which can be indicators of radiation damage, cancer, and a wide variety of inherited diseases. We show that the proposed multi-spectral joint segmentation-classification method outperforms past grayscale segmentation methods when decomposing touching chromosomes. We also show that it outperforms past M-FISH classification techniques that do not use segmentation information.
Last Updated 08/02/11.