Segmentation of dense and multi-species bacterial colonies using models trained on synthetic microscopy images

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Hickl, Vincent, Khan, Abid, Rossi, René M., Silva, Bruno F. B., Maniura-Weber, Katharina
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Hickl, Vincent
Khan, Abid
Rossi, René M.
Silva, Bruno F. B.
Maniura-Weber, Katharina
author_facet Hickl, Vincent
Khan, Abid
Rossi, René M.
Silva, Bruno F. B.
Maniura-Weber, Katharina
contents The spread of microbial infections is governed by the self-organization of bacteria on surfaces. Limitations of live imaging techniques make collective behaviors in clinically relevant systems challenging to quantify. Here, novel experimental and image analysis techniques for high-fidelity single-cell segmentation of bacterial colonies are developed. Machine learning-based segmentation models are trained solely using synthetic microscopy images that are processed to look realistic using state-of-the-art image-to-image translation methods, requiring no biophysical modeling. Accurate single-cell segmentation is achieved for densely packed single-species colonies and multi-species colonies of common pathogenic bacteria, even under suboptimal imaging conditions and for both brightfield and confocal laser scanning microscopy. The resulting data provide quantitative insights into the self-organization of bacteria on soft surfaces. Thanks to their high adaptability and relatively simple implementation, these methods promise to greatly facilitate quantitative descriptions of bacterial infections in varied environments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_12407
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Segmentation of dense and multi-species bacterial colonies using models trained on synthetic microscopy images
Hickl, Vincent
Khan, Abid
Rossi, René M.
Silva, Bruno F. B.
Maniura-Weber, Katharina
Biological Physics
Medical Physics
The spread of microbial infections is governed by the self-organization of bacteria on surfaces. Limitations of live imaging techniques make collective behaviors in clinically relevant systems challenging to quantify. Here, novel experimental and image analysis techniques for high-fidelity single-cell segmentation of bacterial colonies are developed. Machine learning-based segmentation models are trained solely using synthetic microscopy images that are processed to look realistic using state-of-the-art image-to-image translation methods, requiring no biophysical modeling. Accurate single-cell segmentation is achieved for densely packed single-species colonies and multi-species colonies of common pathogenic bacteria, even under suboptimal imaging conditions and for both brightfield and confocal laser scanning microscopy. The resulting data provide quantitative insights into the self-organization of bacteria on soft surfaces. Thanks to their high adaptability and relatively simple implementation, these methods promise to greatly facilitate quantitative descriptions of bacterial infections in varied environments.
title Segmentation of dense and multi-species bacterial colonies using models trained on synthetic microscopy images
topic Biological Physics
Medical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.12407