DeleteROI for Cleaning CiliaQ Output of Non-ciliary Contamination

Area of Science:

• Cell Biology
• Microscopy Image Analysis

Background:

• CiliaQ is an ImageJ plugin for sophisticated 3D ciliary parameter analysis.
• Non-ciliary structures (e.g., midbodies) contaminate CiliaQ output, necessitating manual removal.
• Manual contaminant removal introduces subjective bias due to lack of blinding.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an ImageJ plugin for automated, unbiased removal of non-ciliary contaminants from CiliaQ analysis.
• To reduce investigator bias in the analysis of ciliary parameters.

Main Methods:

• Developed a novel ImageJ plugin to process CiliaQ-identified cilia region-of-interests (ROIs).
• Plugin presents cilia ROIs in a clickable grid for marking contaminants.
• Randomized presentation of ROIs, including interspersion of control and experimental groups, ensures blinding.

Main Results:

• Automated removal of non-ciliary structures from cilia image datasets.
• Significant reduction in subjective bias during contaminant identification.
• Maintained original CiliaQ file formats for seamless data integration.

Conclusions:

• The developed ImageJ plugin effectively automates the removal of contaminants.
• The plugin enhances objectivity in cilia analysis by implementing blinding and randomization.
• This tool improves the reliability and efficiency of ciliary parameter quantification.