Automated measurements of tails in the single cell gel electrophoresis assay

Author

Rivest, J.-F. ; Tang, M. ; McLean, J. ; Johnson, F.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Ottawa Univ., Ont., Canada

Volume

1

fYear

1996

fDate

1996

Firstpage

111

Abstract

This paper presents a method to automate a new technique, which has been developed to detect primary DNA damage of individual cells. It is based on single cell gel electrophoresis: the cells are placed in a gel, and then are prepared in order to free and unwind the DNA. After electrophoresis and staining, the resulting images appear as `comets´, the lighter fragments being at the tail end. Because small DNA fragments are pieces of damaged DNA strands, it is possible to assess DNA damage by measuring morphological characteristics of the comets

Keywords

DNA; biological techniques; biology computing; biophysics; cellular biophysics; computer vision; computerised instrumentation; electrophoresis; medical image processing; molecular biophysics; DNA damage; DNA fragments; automated measurement; comets; damaged DNA strands; morphological characteristics; primary DNA damage; single cell gel electrophoresis assay; staining; tail end; DNA; Electric variables measurement; Electrokinetics; Image edge detection; Performance evaluation; Pixel; Protection; Robustness; Shape; Tail;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference, 1996. IMTC-96. Conference Proceedings. Quality Measurements: The Indispensable Bridge between Theory and Reality., IEEE

Conference_Location

Brussels

Print_ISBN

0-7803-3312-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IMTC.1996.507358

Filename

507358