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A novel approach for efficient extrication of overlapping chromosomes in automated karyotyping

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Abstract

Since the introduction of the automated karyotyping systems, segmentation and classification of touching and overlapping chromosomes in the metaphase images are major challenges. The earlier reported techniques for disentangling the chromosome overlaps have limited success and use only color information in case of multispectral imaging. Most of them are restricted to separation of single overlap of two chromosomes. This paper introduces a novel algorithm to extricate overlapping chromosomes in a metaphase image. The proposed technique uses Delaunay triangulation to automatically identify the number of overlaps in a cluster followed by the detection of the appropriate cut-points. The banding information on the overlapped region further resolves the set of overlapping chromosomes with the identified cut-points. The proposed algorithm has been tested with four data sets of 60 overlapping cases, obtained from publically available databases and private genetic labs. The experimental results provide an overall accuracy of 75–100 % for resolving the cluster of 1–6 overlaps.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, under research Grant: SR/TP/ETA-15/2009. First author is grateful to India National Academy of Engineers (INAE) for facilitating the research schemes and mentoring programs. The authors are also thankful to Dr. A. Khmelinskii for providing the LK1 data set and to Ms. Kruti Shah and Mr. Ketan Soni for their valuable assistance. The authors are thankful to Dr. Moghe, Denanth Mangeshkar Hospital, and Dr. Gambhir, Birth Right Clinic for their guidance. The authors gratefully acknowledge the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestion which have improved the clarity and presentation of this work to a great extent. The first author is thankful to Mr. Prasanjit Mondal and Prof. V. K. Bairagi for their kind assistance in preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronics and Telecommunication, Pune Institute of Computer Technology, Pune, 411043, India

    Mousami V. Munot

  2. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, 721302, India

    Jayanta Mukherjee

  3. Department of Electronics and Telecommunication, College of Engineering, Pune, 411005, India

    Madhuri Joshi

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  1. Mousami V. Munot
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  2. Jayanta Mukherjee
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  3. Madhuri Joshi
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Correspondence to Mousami V. Munot.

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Munot, M.V., Mukherjee, J. & Joshi, M. A novel approach for efficient extrication of overlapping chromosomes in automated karyotyping. Med Biol Eng Comput 51, 1325–1338 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-013-1105-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-013-1105-y

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