Imaging and Machine Vision Europe Feb/Mar 2009

18 scientifi c research
department of neuroscience of Italian university observe, for the fi rst time, the sliding and
SISSA, where researchers are looking to jumping of EcoRV by using an experimental
distinguish between live and dead cells based system whereby individual enzyme molecules
on nuclear morphology. The Mediterranean can be visualised with ﬂ uorescent Cy3 labels.
Institute of Biology in Marseille, France, is also ‘Speed and sensitivity are often mutually
using eCELLence in confocal microscopy to exclusive in a camera because, to gather enough
count neurons on neural networks. light from ﬂ uorescing molecules for single
Vanzella identifi es one difference between molecule detection, the exposure time needs
biological and industrial image analysis: speed. to be longer,’ explains Desbiolles. The project
In industrial applications, speed is often utilised the iXonEM+ 860 back-illuminated
crucial and analysis times are short. ‘In biology, EMCCD camera from Belfast-based Andor
the quality of the evaluation is more important Image analysis software tool, eCELLence, is Technology, a provider of high-value scientifi c
and more time is available. This means that a designed for counting and classifying cells. digital cameras. The iXonEM+ 860 operates at
different kind of algorithm and strategies can Image courtesy of Glance Vision Technologies. a frame rate of 500fps.
be adopted,’ he says. Slow 1D diffusion of the enzyme had to be
An industrial environment is highly and Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, distinguished from 3D translocation (hopping/
controlled and various factors are employed have been using ﬂ uorescence microscopy jumping), which is several orders of magnitude
to ensure edge detection is reliable. ‘In biology to investigate how the EcoRV protein – a faster. Desbiolles explains that a camera with
this is more diffi cult,’ notes Vanzella. The restriction enzyme – acts on and modifi es an exposure time of milliseconds was required
same concept of edge is more vague and other DNA. to detect the length and frequency of jumps. ‘It
mathematical formulae are more suitable for Restriction enzymes are proteins that copy or also needed to be sensitive enough to identify
object recognition. edit DNA sequences, and the main mechanism individual ﬂ uorescent Cy3 labels,’ he says.
Enhanced image analysis algorithms have for identifying targeted DNA base pairs is Desbiolles comments that the work improves
improved the standardisation and effi ciency believed to be ‘sliding’. This is where the understanding of how bacteria protect
of biological image analysis. However, there protein moves linearly in one dimension along themselves against viral attack.
are many applications, utilising ﬂ uorescence the DNA strand. However, recent research has Scientifi c and research applications clearly
for example, where the camera hardware is suggested that proteins can also move along the present very different imaging challenges
important. A research group led by Dr Pierre DNA strand in three dimensions by ‘hopping’ to those faced in traditional machine vision
Desbiolles at Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, CNRS or ‘jumping’. The research project aimed to markets.
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IMVEfeb09 pp16-19 science.indd 18 17/2/09 17:09:47
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