Interactive Labeling of Toponome Data

Abstract

Biological multi-channel microscopy data are often characterized by a high local entropy and phenotypically identical structures covering only a few pixels and forming disjoint regions spread over, e.g., a cell or a tissue section. Toponome data as an example, comprise a fluorescence image (channel) per protein affinity reagent, and capture the location and spatial distribution of proteins in cells and tissues. Biologists investigate such data using a region-of-interest in an image view and a linked view displaying information aggregated or derived from the channels. The cognitive effort of moving the attention back and forth between the views is immense. We present an approach for the in-place annotation of multi-channel microscopy data in 2D views. We combine dynamic excentric labeling and static necklace maps to cope with the special characteristics of these data. The generated annotations support the biologists in visually exploring multi-channel information directly in its spatial context. A label is generated per unique phenotype included in a flexible, moveable focus region. The labels are organized in a circular fashion around the focus region. On demand, a nested labeling can be generated by displaying a second ring of labels which represents the channels characterizing the focused phenotypes. We demonstrate our approach by toponome data of a rhabdomyosarcoma cell line and a prostate tissue section.