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Automated classification of touching or overlapping M-FISH chromosomes by region fusion and homolog pairing

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Abstract

Automated separation and classification of touching or overlapping chromosomes in a metaphase image is a critical step in computer-aided chromosome analysis. The advent of the multiplex fluorescence in situ hybridization (M-FISH) technology enables multi-spectral chromosome image with rich spectral information and DAPI image with abundant texture information. This paper presents a fusion classification scheme to improve the segmentation of overlapping and touching chromosomes. First, the texture and spectral information is fused to partition the chromosome cluster into a series of homologous regions. Then a graph-theoretical classification and pairing method is proposed to resolve any remaining ambiguity of the aforementioned separation process. Experiment results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms conventional multi-spectral classification methods in touching and overlapping chromosome separation.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants No. 61071172, 60602056 and 60634030, Aviation Science Funds 20105153022, Sciences Foundation of Northwestern Polytechnical University No. JC200941 and No. JC201251, and the China Scholarship Council.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Automation, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Shannxi, 710072, China

    Yongqiang Zhao

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, 19122, USA

    Seong G. Kong

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  1. Yongqiang Zhao
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  2. Seong G. Kong
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Correspondence to Yongqiang Zhao.

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Zhao, Y., Kong, S.G. Automated classification of touching or overlapping M-FISH chromosomes by region fusion and homolog pairing. Pattern Anal Applic 16, 31–39 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10044-012-0301-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10044-012-0301-y

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