TEXTURE ANALYSIS OF PROTEIN DISTRIBUTION IMAGES TO FIND DIFFERENCES DUE TO AGING AND SUPERFUSION

Many pathologies are age-related, e.g., cardiovascular disease general ly occurs in midlife and cancer later in life. This suggests that agin g predisposes the body to pathology. Plasma protein spatial distributi on images of rat mesentery extracellular matrix (ECM) show texture due to the ECM structures, and there is an age-related decrease in tissue protein that may be related to matrix structure changes. The objectiv e of this study was to compare changes in protein image texture under two conditions: superfusion with normal saline solution and aging. The decrease in soluble protein concentration during superfusion is a was hout process, while the mechanism for the age-related decrease in tiss ue protein is unknown. Therefore, effects of aging and superfusion on tissue protein image texture were compared. Spatial co-occurence matri x and Fourier analysis techniques have been used for texture evaluatio n. Superfused images showed a more uniform protein texture. There were gradual age related changes in image texture parameters. Entropy incr eased with age from 140 to 630 days, indicating that protein distribut ion became more disorganized. The results suggest that changes in prot ein image texture are due to age-related alterations in matrix structu re because removing only protein by superfusion had opposite effects o n texture parameters.