QUANTITATIVE IMAGE ANALYSIS OF CHROMOSOME DYNAMICS IN EARLY DROSOPHILA EMBRYOS

We have developed a method for the automatic quantification of chromosome dynamics in live fluorescent microscopy image sequences of mitosis in Drosophila early embryos. Our approach utilises the fast level sets method to perform image segmentation and tracking and incorporates the use of intensity information and prior knowledge of the shape of the chromosomes in the images, the method allows us to easily extract biologically relevant parameters. Tracking and measurements from real fluorescent imaging datasets are presented, highlighting the robustness of our techniques