Cell region fingerprints enable highly precise single-cell tracking and lineage reconstruction

Area of Science:

• Cell biology
• Microscopy
• Genetics

Background:

• Accurate single-cell observation over time is essential for studying cell growth and inheritance.
• Manual cell tracking in microscopy is labor-intensive and prone to errors.
• Developing automated and reliable cell tracking methods is critical for advancing biological research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel, rapid, and accurate method for single-cell tracking in microscopy.
• To improve the efficiency and reliability of reconstructing cell genealogies.
• To enable the discovery of previously undescribed single-cell biology.

Main Methods:

• Introduction of a "fingerprint" method utilizing Fourier transform low-frequency structural information for cell similarity assessment.
• Development of a cell tracker (TracX) that employs fingerprint distance to reject erroneous cell assignments.
• Application and validation of the method across diverse cell types and imaging modalities.

Main Results:

• The fingerprint method demonstrates broad applicability across different cell types and image modalities.
• TracX significantly enhances tracking performance on both published and new long-term datasets.
• Precise cell tracking facilitated the development of a comprehensive model for cell size control in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Conclusions:

• Fingerprint-based cell tracking offers a robust solution to a major challenge in microscopy-based cell biology.
• Improved cell tracking accuracy accelerates the discovery of fundamental biological processes at the single-cell level.
• This approach provides a powerful tool for uncovering novel insights into cell growth, inheritance, and regulation.