Julian Weichsel, Nikolas Herold, Maik J. Lehmann, Hans-Georg
Kräusslich, Ulrich S. Schwarz

A quantitative measure for alterations in the actin cytoskeleton
investigated with automated high-throughput microscopy

Cytometry Part A, Volume 77A, Issue 1, Pages 52 - 63, 2010

The actin cytoskeleton modulates a large variety of physiological and
disease-related processes in the cell. For example, actin has been
shown to be a crucial host factor for successful infection by HIV-1,
but the underlying mechanistic details are still unknown. Automated
approaches open up the perspective to clarify such an issue by
processing many samples in a high-throughput manner. To analyze the
alterations in the actin cytoskeleton within an automated setting,
large-scale image acquisition and analysis were established for JC-53
cells stained for actin. As a quantitative measure in such an
automated approach, we suggest a parameter called image coherency. We
successfully benchmarked our analysis by calculating coherency for
both a biophysical model of the actin cytoskeleton and for cells whose
actin architecture had been disturbed pharmacologically by latrunculin
B or cytochalasin D. We then tested the influence of HIV-1 infection
on actin coherency, but observed no significant differences between
uninfected and infected cells.