Towards digital representation of Drosophila embryogenesis

Animal development can be described as a complex, three- dimensional cellular system that changes dramatically across time as a consequence of cell proliferation, differentiation and movement. Using Drosophila embryogenesis as a model we are developing molecular, imaging and image analysis techniques to record an entire developmental system at cellular resolution. We image Drosophila embryos expressing fluorescent markers in toto using single plane illumination microscopy (SPIM). SPIM offers the unique ability to image large living biological specimens in their entirety by acquiring image stacks from multiple angles while also providing high temporal resolution necessary for following dynamic developmental processes. We have developed an image analysis pipeline that efficiently processes long-term time-lapse multi-view SPIM data by aligning the different angles with high precision for a single time point and propagating the alignment parameters throughout the time series. The registered views are fused using an approach that evaluates the image content in each view.