Quantitative Phase Imaging (QPI) has gained popularity in bioimaging because it can avoid the need for cell staining, which in some cases is difficult or impossible. However, as a result, QPI does not provide labelling of various specific intracellular structures. Here we show a novel computational segmentation method based on statistical inference that makes it possible for QPI techniques to identify the cell nucleus. We demonstrate the approach with refractive index tomograms of stain-free cells reconstructed through the tomographic phase microscopy in flow cytometry mode. In particular, by means of numerical simulations and two cancer cell lines, we demonstrate that the nucleus can be accurately distinguished within the stain-free tomograms. We show that our experimental results are consistent with confocal fluorescence microscopy (FM) data and microfluidic cytofluorimeter outputs. This is a significant step towards extracting specific three-dimensional intracellular structures directly from the phase-contrast data in a typical flow cytometry configuration.
Stain-free identification of cell nuclei using tomographic phase microscopy in flow cytometry / Pirone, Daniele; Lim, Joowon; Merola, Francesco; Miccio, Lisa; Mugnano, Martina; Bianco, Vittorio; Cimmino, Flora; Visconte, Feliciano; Montella, Annalaura; Capasso, Mario; Iolascon, Achille; Memmolo, Pasquale; Psaltis, Demetri; Ferraro, Pietro. - In: NATURE PHOTONICS. - ISSN 1749-4885. - 16:12(2022), pp. 851-859. [10.1038/s41566-022-01096-7]
Stain-free identification of cell nuclei using tomographic phase microscopy in flow cytometry
Mugnano, Martina;Montella, Annalaura;Capasso, Mario;Iolascon, Achille;
2022
Abstract
Quantitative Phase Imaging (QPI) has gained popularity in bioimaging because it can avoid the need for cell staining, which in some cases is difficult or impossible. However, as a result, QPI does not provide labelling of various specific intracellular structures. Here we show a novel computational segmentation method based on statistical inference that makes it possible for QPI techniques to identify the cell nucleus. We demonstrate the approach with refractive index tomograms of stain-free cells reconstructed through the tomographic phase microscopy in flow cytometry mode. In particular, by means of numerical simulations and two cancer cell lines, we demonstrate that the nucleus can be accurately distinguished within the stain-free tomograms. We show that our experimental results are consistent with confocal fluorescence microscopy (FM) data and microfluidic cytofluorimeter outputs. This is a significant step towards extracting specific three-dimensional intracellular structures directly from the phase-contrast data in a typical flow cytometry configuration.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.