Calcium (Ca2+) waves data calibration and analysis using image processing techniques
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Date
2013
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Abstract
Abstract
Background
Calcium (Ca2+) propagates within tissues serving as an important information carrier. In particular, cilia beat frequency in oviduct cells is partially regulated by Ca2+ changes. Thus, measuring the calcium density and characterizing the traveling wave plays a key role in understanding biological phenomena. However, current methods to measure propagation velocities and other wave characteristics involve several manual or time-consuming procedures. This limits the amount of information that can be extracted, and the statistical quality of the analysis.
Results
Our work provides a framework based on image processing procedures that enables a fast, automatic and robust characterization of data from two-filter fluorescence Ca2+ experiments. We calculate the mean velocity of the wave-front, and use theoretical models to extract meaningful parameters like wave amplitude, decay rate and time of excitation.
Conclusions
Measurements done by different operators showed a high degree of reproducibility. This framework is also extended to a single filter fluorescence experiments, allowing higher sampling rates, and thus an increased accuracy in velocity measurements.
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Citation
BMC Bioinformatics. 2013 May 16;14(1):162