WIS-PhagoTracker
Phago Kinetic Tracks Analysis Tool
WIS-PhagoTracker is a software application for quantitative analysis of high throughput cell migration assay. The cell migration assay [1] is based on a modified Phagokinetic tracks procedure, in which motile cells "leave their tracks" on a specialized surface. These tracks are visualized using a screening microscope.
WIS-PhagoTracker enables morphometric analysis of such tracks. It uses state of the art multiscale segmentation algorithm [2] for fine detection of tracks and cells boundaries. Following the segmentation step, it quantifies various morphometric parameters for each track, such as track area, perimeter, major and minor axis and solidity. All these measures are calculated for each track in each well of a well plate and saved for further statistical analysis.
WIS-PhagoTracker supports all the analysis phases starting from preprocessing, finding tracks of selected wells or a whole plate, through viewing the results and manually rejecting tracks to statistical analysis of the results. It also supports batch processing of several plates, and analysis of single image files. A user interface enables the user to modify the relevant parameters of the process, according to specific image's requirements. Results are exported into Excel readable files. It runs on Windows XP platforms. Users familiar with other Windows programs will find this software fairly straightforward to use.
WIS-PhagoTracker was developed by Ofra Golani, Meirav Galun and Suha Naffar Abu-Amara in the laboratories of Prof. Benny Geiger and Prof. Ronen Basri at the Department of Molecular Cell Biology and the Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at theWeizmann Institute of Science.
The very accurate tracks detection which is the core of WIS-PhagoTracker is achieved by using multi-scale segmentation algorithm [2] developed by: Ronen Basri, Achi Brandt, Meirav Galun, Yoav Karnieli and Eitan Sharon, at the Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the Weizmann Institute and patented in [3].
Please credit WIS-PhagoTracker by citing the papers describing its underlying methods [1],[2]. We will appreciate it if you would update us with any publication using the tool.