Dense Optical Flow Software to Quantify Cellular Contractility

Overview

Journal Cell Rep Methods

Specialty Cell Biology

Date 2022 Apr 27

PMID 35475144

Authors

Sergio Scalzo

Marcelo Q L Afonso

Neli J da Fonseca Jr

Itamar C G Jesus

Ana Paula Alves

Carolina A T F Mendonca

Vanessa P Teixeira

Diogo Biagi

Estela Cruvinel

Anderson K Santos

Kiany Miranda

Flavio A M Marques

Oscar N Mesquita

Christopher Kushmerick

Maria Jose Campagnole-Santos

Ubirajara Agero

Silvia Guatimosim

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Cell membrane deformation is an important feature that occurs during many physiological processes, and its study has been put to good use to investigate cardiomyocyte function. Several methods have been developed to extract information on cardiomyocyte contractility. However, no existing computational framework has provided, in a single platform, a straightforward approach to acquire, process, and quantify this type of cellular dynamics. For this reason, we develop CONTRACTIONWAVE, high-performance software written in Python programming language that allows the user to process large data image files and obtain contractility parameters by analyzing optical flow from images obtained with videomicroscopy. The software was validated by using neonatal, adult-, and human-induced pluripotent stem-cell-derived cardiomyocytes, treated or not with drugs known to affect contractility. Results presented indicate that CONTRACTIONWAVE is an excellent tool for examining changes to cardiac cellular contractility in animal models of disease and for pharmacological and toxicology screening during drug discovery.

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