School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332; email:
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544; email:
Annu Rev Biomed Eng. 2016 Jul 11;18:285-309. doi: 10.1146/annurev-bioeng-100515-013926. Epub 2016 Feb 29.
Developmental biology has traditionally relied on qualitative analyses; recently, however, as in other fields of biology, researchers have become increasingly interested in acquiring quantitative knowledge about embryogenesis. Advances in fluorescence microscopy are enabling high-content imaging in live specimens. At the same time, microfluidics and automation technologies are increasing experimental throughput for studies of multicellular models of development. Furthermore, computer vision methods for processing and analyzing bioimage data are now leading the way toward quantitative biology. Here, we review advances in the areas of fluorescence microscopy, microfluidics, and data analysis that are instrumental to performing high-content, high-throughput studies in biology and specifically in development. We discuss a case study of how these techniques have allowed quantitative analysis and modeling of pattern formation in the Drosophila embryo.
发育生物学传统上依赖于定性分析；然而，最近，就像在生物学的其他领域一样，研究人员越来越有兴趣获得关于胚胎发生的定量知识。荧光显微镜的进步使得对活标本进行高内涵成像成为可能。与此同时，微流控和自动化技术正在提高用于研究多细胞发育模型的实验通量。此外，用于处理和分析生物图像数据的计算机视觉方法正在引领定量生物学的发展。在这里，我们回顾了在荧光显微镜、微流控和数据分析等领域的进展，这些进展对于在生物学中特别是在发育生物学中进行高内涵、高通量研究至关重要。我们讨论了一个案例研究，说明了这些技术如何允许对果蝇胚胎中模式形成进行定量分析和建模。
