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Automatic Detection of Spherical Particles from Spot-Scan Electron Microscopy Images

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 August 2003

Pamela A. Thuman-Commike
Affiliation:
Program in Structural and Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, Texas 77030 The W. M. Keck Center for Computational Biology, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005
Wah Chiu
Affiliation:
Program in Structural and Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, Texas 77030 The W. M. Keck Center for Computational Biology, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005 Verna and Marrs McLean Department of Biochemistry, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, Texas 77030
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Abstract

In this article we present a method to identify and extract spherical particle images from noisy spot-scan and flood beam electron microscopy images. We use a template matching algorithm with additional image preprocessing operations to allow consistent particle selection in spot-scan and other highly spatially varying images. In addition, this algorithm incorporates an automated image-cutting and edge-sewing mechanism that allows efficient particle selection despite the large size of electron microscopy images. We have tested this template matching algorithm on various spherical virus particle images with a large range of defocus values and have found that the particles are consistently selected in an accurately centered manner. In addition, this method is able to extract spherical virus particles from 400-kV electron microscopy images with defocus values of less than 1.0 μm underfocus where the particles are not readily visible to the human eye.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1995 Microscopy Society of America

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