Release of Growth Cone Analyzer

A new method to quantify morphological variation among complex cellular architectures. Growth cones are complex, motile structures at the tip of an outgrowing neurite. They often exhibit a high density of filopodia (thin actin bundles), which complicates the unbiased quantification of their morphologies by software. Contemporary image processing methods require extensive tuning of segmentation parameters and are often not sufficiently adaptable to capture morphology changes associated with switches in regulatory signals.
In a study recently published in the Journal of Cell Biology, Bagonis et al. devise a method to overcome such limitations. The robustness of this new tool enabled the study of morphological variation and its relation to motility in both an unperturbed system and in the context of modified Rho GTPase signaling.
The project was initiated jointly with the lab of Dr. Olivier Pertz at the University of Bern.
The Journal of Cell Biology, published by The Rockefeller University Press, is the leading peer-reviewed journal for cell biology.

Automated profiling of growth cone heterogeneity defines relations between morphology and motility

Video 2 from manuscript.

Visualization of GCA veil/stem reconstruction steps for four noncanonical N1E-115 GCs. Different steps in the algorithm are shown for a single frame. Automatic algorithmic deviations for select reconstruction problems are emphasized. Visualization ends after veil/stem reconstruction is complete. Corresponds to Fig. 1 B. Bar, 10 µm.