Cell-based fuzzy metrics enhance high-content screening (HCS) assay robustness

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

  • Hind Azegrouz
  • Gopal Karemore
  • Alberto Torres
  • Carlos M Alaíz
  • Ana M Gonzalez
  • Pedro Nevado
  • Alvaro Salmerón
  • Teijo Pellinen
  • Miguel A del Pozo
  • José R Dorronsoro
  • María C Montoya

High-content screening (HCS) allows the exploration of complex cellular phenotypes by automated microscopy and is increasingly being adopted for small interfering RNA genomic screening and phenotypic drug discovery. We introduce a series of cell-based evaluation metrics that have been implemented and validated in a mono-parametric HCS for regulators of the membrane trafficking protein caveolin 1 (CAV1) and have also proved useful for the development of a multiparametric phenotypic HCS for regulators of cytoskeletal reorganization. Imaging metrics evaluate imaging quality such as staining and focus, whereas cell biology metrics are fuzzy logic-based evaluators describing complex biological parameters such as sparseness, confluency, and spreading. The evaluation metrics were implemented in a data-mining pipeline, which first filters out cells that do not pass a quality criterion based on imaging metrics and then uses cell biology metrics to stratify cell samples to allow further analysis of homogeneous cell populations. Use of these metrics significantly improved the robustness of the monoparametric assay tested, as revealed by an increase in Z' factor, Kolmogorov-Smirnov distance, and strict standard mean difference. Cell biology evaluation metrics were also implemented in a novel supervised learning classification method that combines them with phenotypic features in a statistical model that exceeded conventional classification methods, thus improving multiparametric phenotypic assay sensitivity.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Biomolecular Screening
Volume18
Issue number10
Pages (from-to)1270-83
Number of pages14
ISSN1087-0571
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2013
Externally publishedYes

    Research areas

  • Cell Line, Tumor, Drug Evaluation, Preclinical, Fuzzy Logic, High-Throughput Screening Assays, Humans, Microscopy, Confocal, Microscopy, Fluorescence, ROC Curve, Reproducibility of Results

ID: 132777783