PROSPECTING FOR LIVE CELL BIOIMAGING PROBES WITH CHEMINFORMATIC ASSISTED IMAGE ARRAY (CAIA)

Cheminformatic assisted image array (CAIA) is a data mining and visualization tool linking chemical structures to microscope images of cells incubated with prospective bioimaging probes. In a CAIA, machine vision can be used to calculate the quantitative contribution of the chemical features of candidate probes to the apparent image features. In turn, image arrays can be constructed and sorted based on the features of molecules or images, so that the contribution of chemical features on visual features of the images can be readily discerned, across a large data set. By enabling visualization of complex multidimensional relationships between chemical structures and visual signals, CAIA can facilitate the search for new classes of fluorescent probes of cell structure and function.