INTEREST OF IMAGE-PROCESSING IN CELL BIOLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY

Microscopy is a basic tool for cell biologists. Recent progress of ele ctronics and computer science made powerful methodologies for digital processing of microscopic images easily available.:These methods allow ed impressive increase of the power of conventional microscopy. Dramat ic image enhancement may be achieved by combination of filtering techn iques, computer-based deblurring and contrast enhancement. Quantitativ e treatment of digitized images allows absolute determination of the d ensity of different components of the observed sample, including antig ens, intracellular calcium and pH. Morphometric studies are also great ly facilitated by image processing techniques. The capture of fast phe nomena may be performed by transfer of small portion of microscopic im ages into computer memory as well as particular use of confocal micros copy. Finally, improved display of experimental data through coded col ors or other procedures may enhance the amount of information that can be conveyed by visual examination of microscopical images. The purpos e of the present review is to describe the basic principles of image p rocessing and exemplify the power of this approach with a variety of i llustrated applications to conventional, fluorescence or electron micr oscopy as well as confocal microscopy. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.