Processing of 2D Electrophoresis Gels

Here we present results on 2D electrophoresis gel image processing using methods that provide a measure of meaningfulness. This work is part of an ongoing project on biomedical image analysis. Biomedical sciences have a long tradition in our country and therefore there is extensive experience in this area. Unfortunately, economical restrictions sometimes do not allow our researchers to have the latest technology. As we will see later, 2D electrophoresis gels are an extremely useful and affordable technology, which can be used in our countries. From the image processing point of view we believe that there is room for improvements when thinking in the final software application. With this in mind we present an algorithm that covers all the steps for gel image registration. First we present a method for robust and meaningful detection of spots. Then we study two improvements on the computation of the distance between spots using shape contexts. Finally, we present an iterative random sampling process which deals with spot differences between images to give a gel registration. Across all the steps we address the easy interaction with the user based on a measure of meaningfulness of the results.