What is Image Analyst MKII?

     Image Analyst MKII is designated image analysis tool for fluorescence time lapse microscopy. Use this tool to calculate and extract graphs of biological parameters from image sequences, like ion concentrations, membrane potentials, organelle shape changes and motion.

    The aims of the development of Image Analyst MKII were to create a speed optimized and user friendly image analysis environment primarily for the field of cell and mitochondrial physiology. Image Analyst MKII provides functionality for unbiased image analysis and convenient processing of multi position and microplate-based image sets by streamlined but flexible analysis automation.

    As input, the Image Analyst MKII reads grayscale X,Y,t or X,Y,Z,t image sequences. For this speed optimized internal readers or interfacing with Bio-Formats reader library are available.  You can perform math with fluorescence intensities using floating point precision and speed offered by Image Analyst MKII. A selection of image processing functions is provided by the Image Analyst MKII, that has been proved to be useful for biological, time lapse image processing, and validated in scientific publications.

      The output of Image Analyst is the extracted biological information as a function of time in tabular format; in text files or in Excel. Processed images can be exported as RGB pictures or movies.  

COMING SOON:

Mitochondrial membrane potential calibration wizard: A biologist-friendly, math-free solution of calibration of the in situ mitochondrial membrane potentials published in Gerencser et al. J Physiol 2012 is under testing.

Demonstration of assays:

FEATURES:

Analysis based on fluorescence intensity

• Intracellular ion measurements with ratiometric dyes
    (Fura dyes, SBFI, PBFI)
• Intracellular ion measurements with non-ratiometric dyes
    (Fluo dyes, Rhod-2, X-Rhod dyes)
• Mitochondrial Ca2+ measurement
    using the high pass filtering technique (1)
• Mitochondrial and plasma membrane potential measurements (3-4,9)
• FRET calculations (5)
• Fluorescence bleed-through correction (5)
• Segmentation-based, automated analysis of fluorescence intensities (4,8,11)
• Measurement of mitochondrial and plasma membrane potential (implementation in Image Analyst MKII coming soon) (12)

Analysis based on morphology

• Novel, gradient-based morphological assays are available:
• Mitochondrial swelling assay using optimized spatial filtering (2,7)
• Organelle motion assay using optical flow (3)
• Segmentation based morphological assays, adaptive thresholding (3-4,6)
• Quantification of intramitochondrial phosphate precipitates in electron microscopic images (6)
• Quality control of synaptosome preparations. Selective imaging of dopaminergic nerve termini by image segmentation and gating (8)
• Measurement of mitochondria to cell volume fraction with confocal microscopy (8,9)
• Counting protein aggregates in c. elegans (10)

General features

• Multi processor support, optimized for the latest Intel processors
• Full 32bit floating point image processing
• Convenient and efficient for routine use as well as for exploration
• Block diagram style visual macro workflow

System requirements

• Operating system Windows 2000, XP and Vista, 7
• Memory: 1-2GB
• Hard disk space: 80MB
• CPU: Intel Pentium class processor or compatible.

Compatible microscopy systems (with internal reader):

• Metamorph (*.stk, *.nd)
• Metafluor (*.inf)
• Elements (*.nd2)
• Zeiss LSM (*.lsm)
• Olympus Fluoview Tif (multiple files)
• Slidebook tif export (multiple files or stacks)
• 8, 12 and 16 bit gray scale LZW compressed or uncompressed tifs and tif stacks
• 24 and 48 bit RGB Tif LZW compressed or uncompressed