Quantification of in vitro cell invasion through image analysis

An image analysis method for quantification of in vitro cell invasion is presented. The method is designed for in vitro assays that are based on invasion of cells through a porous membrane. The images are obtained with a light microscope. The method has two major steps. The first one is the detection of the well in which invasion occurs. The second task is the detection of cells that have invaded through the membrane. The image processing techniques that are employed include thresholding and morphological filtering. Image processing results of in vitro invasion experiments and an analysis of robustness are presented to demonstrate the accuracy of the method.