IMAGE-PROCESSING ALGORITHMS FOR THE AUTOMATED MICRONUCLEUS ASSAY IN BINUCLEATED HUMAN-LYMPHOCYTES

The frequency of micronuclei in binucleated lymphocytes (cytochalasin B assay) may serve as a biological dosimeter after radiation exposure, The automation of the micronucleus assay in binucleated human lymphoc ytes has been considerably advanced in recent years, In our studies fo r this purpose the detection of binucleated cells (BNCs) and the scori ng of micronuclei (MN) was divided into two parts, First, detection of BNCs was feasible with low microscopic magnification (x100), The posi tions of classified BNCs were stored, Second, after an automatic chang e of microscope objective, the stored BNCs were automatically analyzed in sequence at high microscopic magnification (x630) for occurrence o f MN, For both phases of image analysis we used empirical methods base d on mathematical morphology, The system is able to recognize nearly 6 5% of BNCs with false positive decisions of 6% and about 75% of the MN with false positive decisions of 7%. (C) 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.