High content analysis identifies unique morphological features of reprogrammed cardiomyocytes.

ABSTRACT: Direct reprogramming of fibroblasts into cardiomyocytes is a promising approach for cardiac regeneration but still faces challenges in efficiently generating mature cardiomyocytes. Systematic optimization of reprogramming protocols requires scalable, objective methods to assess cellular phenotype beyond what is captured by transcriptional signatures alone. To address this question, we automatically segmented reprogrammed cardiomyocytes from immunofluorescence images and analyzed cell morphology. We also introduce a method to quantify sarcomere structure using Haralick texture features, called SarcOmere Texture Analysis (SOTA). We show that induced cardiac-like myocytes (iCLMs) are highly variable in expression of cardiomyocyte markers, producing subtypes that are not typically seen in vivo

SUBMITTER: Sutcliffe MD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5775342 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature