Feature extraction of non-stained melanocyte cells

We present a procedure that extracts detailed morphological measurements from human melanocyte cells. The cells and imaging condition have the following characteristics: (i) no immunohistochemical markers were used (i.e. no colour); (ii) their morphology is rather elongated, and every cell has a number of dendrites; and (iii) overlapping dendrites are normally seen in culture. The axial orientation of single cells has been measured among other features related to dendrites, such as their branching factor, orientation and length. The approach shown in this paper is readily applicable to several dendritic-like cells. Since most of the papers in the field deal with stained or nearly rounded cells, this paper may well help to fill the gap between the existing literature and current clinical practice.