Optical Biopsy Using a Neural Network to Predict Gene Expression From Photos of Wounds

The clinical characterization of the biological status of complex wounds remains a considerable challenge. Digital photography provides a non-invasive means of obtaining wound information and is currently employed to assess wounds qualitatively. Advances in machine learning (ML) image processing provide a means of identifying "hidden" features in pictures. This pilot study trains a convolutional neural network (CNN) to predict gene expression based on digital photographs of wounds in a canine model of volumetric muscle loss (VML).

Images of volumetric muscle loss injuries and tissue biopsies were obtained in a canine model of VML. A CNN was trained to regress gene expression values as a function of the extracted image segment (color and spatial distribution). Performance of the CNN was assessed in a held-back test set of images using Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE).

The CNN was able to predict the gene expression of certain genes based on digital images, with a MAPE ranging from ∼10% to ∼30%, indicating the presence and identification of distinct, and identifiable patterns in gene expression throughout the wound.

These initial results suggest promise for further research regarding this novel use of ML regression on medical images. Specifically, the use of CNNs to determine the mechanistic biological state of a VML wound could aid both the design of future mechanistic interventions and the design of trials to test those therapies. Future work will expand the CNN training and/or test set, with potential expansion to predicting functional gene modules.