Osman OS, Selway JL, Harikumar PE, Stocker CJ, Wargent ET, Cawthorne MA, Jassim S, Langlands K. A novel method to assess collagen architecture in skin.
BMC Bioinformatics 2013;
14:260. [PMID:
23971965 PMCID:
PMC3765639 DOI:
10.1186/1471-2105-14-260]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 48] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/14/2013] [Accepted: 08/21/2013] [Indexed: 12/01/2022] Open
Abstract
Background
Texture within biological specimens may reveal critical insights, while being very difficult to quantify. This is a particular problem in histological analysis. For example, cross-polar images of picrosirius stained skin reveal exquisite structure, allowing changes in the basketweave conformation of healthy collagen to be assessed. Existing techniques measure gross pathological changes, such as fibrosis, but are not sufficiently sensitive to detect more subtle and progressive pathological changes in the dermis, such as those seen in ageing. Moreover, screening methods for cutaneous therapeutics require accurate, unsupervised and high-throughput image analysis techniques.
Results
By analyzing spectra of images post Gabor filtering and Fast Fourier Transform, we were able to measure subtle changes in collagen fibre orientation intractable to existing techniques. We detected the progressive loss of collagen basketweave structure in a series of chronologically aged skin samples, as well as in skin derived from a model of type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Conclusions
We describe a novel bioimaging approach with implications for the evaluation of pathology in a broader range of biological situations.
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