Morphological measurements on filamentous microorganisms by fully automatic image analysis

Abstract

Characterization of mycelial morphology is important for physiological and engineering studies of filamentous fermentations, and in the design and operation of such fermentations. Image analysis has been developed as a method for this characterization, and has been shown to be faster and generally more accurate than previous methods. A fully automatic system has been developed, in which speed is gained, but with loss of accuracy in some cases. The method has been tested on Streptomyces clavuligerus and Penicillium chrysogenum P1 batch fermentations. It has also been tested on a fed-batch Penicillium chrysogenum P2 fermentation, in which the medium contained solid ingredients. Fully automatic image analysis for morphological characterization of filamentous microorganisms is an important development which will make practical many engineering and physiological studies of such fermentations that have so far not been completely satisfactory.

Effect of transport phenomena of Cladosporium cladosporioides on decolorization and chemical oxygen demand of distillery spent wash

“…Samples were fixed with an equal volume of fixative (13 mL of 40 % formaldehyde, 5 mL glacial acetic acid with 200 mL of 50 % ethanol). Each fixed sample (0.1 mL) was transferred to a slide, air-dried and stained with methylene blue (0.3 methylene blue, 30 mL 95 % ethanol in 100 mL water) (Packer and Thomas 1990). Morphological factors such as hyphal length, number of arthrospores, roughness factors hyphal thickness, and length of swollen hyphal fragments were measured after sorting and classifying by image analyzing process.…”

Image analysis of the morphology of filamentous micro-organisms

“…Recently, Yang et al (1996) also considered clump morphology and its characterization by image analysis. In considering clumps for the first time, Packer & Thomas (1990) demonstrated that automatic image analysis was not only faster and more convenient than earlier methods, but also might provide new and potentially valuable morphological measurements. One possible measurement on a clump is its 'projected area', which is the area of the three-dimensional clump as observed in its two-dimensional image captured by the camera.…”

Characterization of Fungal Morphology using Digital Image Analysis Techniques

“…binary images were manually edited. In 1990, Packer and Thomas [19] presented a software application for use with a general purpose image analyzer that enabled fully automated analysis. The program required the manual setting of several application-specific parameters, e.g.…”

“…Later, Tucker et al [9] expanded the work of Packer and Thomas [19] by developing a method that could give important measurements on clumps. Clumps were identified by "ultimate skeletonization" which was successive removal of pixels until either a single point or a loop remained.…”