Automated quantification of zebrafish somites based on PDE method.

With the availability of high-throughput imaging machines and a large number of zebrafish embryos, zebrafish are clearly among the most cost-effective vertebrate systems for high-throughput or high-content screens with applications in drug discovery and biological pathway analysis. With the tremendous volume of images generated from large numbers of zebrafish screens, computerized image analysis for accurate and efficient data interpretation becomes essential. This paper presents an automated algorithm for a high-throughput screening pipeline for quantification of zebrafish somite. First, the main body is segmented using the level set method; then the head is removed; after that, the body is aligned and a coherence-enhancing filter is carried out so as to facilitate the somite detection. Finally, the somites can be easily extracted. Preliminary evaluation results are reported to demonstrate the good performance of the algorithm.