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Updated: May 14, 2026
06:43
Functional Assessment of Intestinal Tight Junction Barrier and Ion Permeability in Native Tissue by Ussing Chamber Technique
Published on: May 26, 2021
Analysis of tight junction formation and integrity
Mahmut Karakaya1, Ryan A Kerekes, Jennifer L Morrell-Falvey
1Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA. karakayam@ornl.gov
Summary
This study presents an automated method to segment tight junctions in low-resolution images, enabling quantitative analysis of their formation and integrity for cell permeability studies.
Area of Science:
- Cell Biology
- Image Analysis
- Biophysics
Background:
- Analyzing tight junctions in large confocal image stacks is challenging due to low resolution and structural breaks.
- Accurate segmentation is crucial for understanding tight junction formation and integrity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop an automated, three-step approach for segmenting tight junctions in confocal image stacks.
- To enable quantitative assessment of tight junction continuity and formation.
- To correlate tight junction features with cell monolayer permeability.
Main Methods:
- Nucleus localization using thresholding, morphological filters, and active contours.
- Cell body segmentation seeded by nucleus positions and active contours.
- Intensity-based skeletonization for boundary region generation and feature extraction from tight junctions.
Main Results:
- Successful automated segmentation of tight junctions in challenging image datasets.
- Computation of relevant features quantifying tight junction continuity.
- Demonstrated correlation between segmented features and tight junction formation.
Conclusions:
- The automated approach effectively segments tight junctions and provides quantitative measures.
- This method facilitates the assessment of tight junction integrity and its relation to cell permeability.
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