MORPHOLOGICAL RECOGNITION OF FUNGAL SPORE GERMINATION BY A COMPUTER-AIDED IMAGE-ANALYSIS AND ITS APPLICATION TO ANTIFUNGAL ACTIVITY EVALUATION

An automatic image analysis system has been developed for measuring th e germination characteristics of fungal spores and assessing the antif ungal activity of antifungal agent against fungal spore germination in liquid medium. The system is composed of a multi-well culture chamber , automatic stage, microscopic observation system, image analyzing sys tem, and computer program. An image of spores displayed on a TV monito r was converted to the binary brightness image by properly adjusting t he threshold brightness level. The binary image was further analysed b y using a curvature-based shape representation technique. ?Thus obtain ed profile of each spore was expressed by the combination of four line elements: line, convex, concave, and apical. From these morphological characteristics of spore, the germinated spores could be discriminate d. This system was successfully applied to the assessment of antifunga l activity of amphotericin B against fungi: Aspergillus fumigatus, Cur vularia lunata, and Fusarium solani.