A Case Study on 3-D Reconstruction and Shape Description of Peroxisomes in Yeast

Subcellular organelles are commonly analyzed using 2D fluorescent microscopy. However, 3D reconstruction and analysis of organelle topology in a high-throughput manner promises to result in a better understanding of cellular systems. We developed image analysis methods for automated quantitative analysis of peroxisome shapes. The methods employ 3D image stacks obtained by confocal microscopy. There are three fundamental phases: image preprocessing and segmentation, 3D reconstruction, and automated quantification of peroxisome topology in 3D using shape descriptors. The algorithms are shown to produce results that can be used to classify objects of different topologies, and to enable visual studies of peroxisomes in 3D.