Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA.
Department of Biomedical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA.
Sci Rep. 2024 Jun 7;14(1):13176. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-62692-x.
Brugia malayi are thread-like parasitic worms and one of the etiological agents of Lymphatic filariasis (LF). Existing anthelmintic drugs to treat LF are effective in reducing the larval microfilaria (mf) counts in human bloodstream but are less effective on adult parasites. To test potential drug candidates, we report a multi-parameter phenotypic assay based on tracking the motility of adult B. malayi and mf in vitro. For adult B. malayi, motility is characterized by the centroid velocity, path curvature, angular velocity, eccentricity, extent, and Euler Number. These parameters are evaluated in experiments with three anthelmintic drugs. For B. malayi mf, motility is extracted from the evolving body skeleton to yield positional data and bending angles at 74 key point. We achieved high-fidelity tracking of complex worm postures (self-occlusions, omega turns, body bending, and reversals) while providing a visual representation of pose estimates and behavioral attributes in both space and time scales.
班氏丝虫是一种线状寄生蠕虫，也是淋巴丝虫病（LF）的病原体之一。现有的抗蠕虫药物治疗 LF 可有效降低人体血液中幼虫微丝蚴（mf）的数量，但对成虫寄生虫的效果较差。为了测试潜在的候选药物，我们报告了一种基于跟踪体外成年班氏丝虫和 mf 运动的多参数表型测定法。对于成年班氏丝虫，运动特征由质心速度、路径曲率、角速度、偏心率、幅度和欧拉数来描述。在使用三种驱虫药物的实验中评估了这些参数。对于班氏丝虫 mf，运动是从不断变化的身体骨骼中提取的，以产生位置数据和 74 个关键点处的弯曲角度。我们实现了对复杂蠕虫姿势（自身闭塞、ω 转弯、身体弯曲和反转）的高保真跟踪，同时在空间和时间尺度上提供了姿势估计和行为属性的可视化表示。
