Microarray Image Segmentation Using Region Growing Algorithm and Mathematical Morphology

Image processing is an important aspect of microarray experiments. Spots segmentation meaning to distinguish the spot signals from background pixels, is a critical step in microarray image processing. After analyzing other existing means of microarray segmentation, a new method based on region growing algorithm, mathematical morphology (MM) filtering and morphological processing is presented. And its corresponding theory and realizable steps are introduced in this paper. The simulations show that the region growing algorithm method for spot image segmentation has better performance than the most commonly used segmentation methods including the ScanAlizeTM method and GenePixTM method. The Experimental results are computationally attractive, have excellent performance and can preserve structural information while efficiently suppressing noise in cDNA microarray data.