Rapid and fully automated blood vasculature analysis in 3D light-sheet image volumes of different organs

• DOI: 10.1016/j.crmeth.2023.100436
• Publication Date: 2023-03-17T15:19:15Z
• Authors: Philippa Spangenberg; Nina Hagemann; Anthony Squire; Nils Förster; Sascha D. Krauß; Yachao Qi; Ayan Mohamud Yusuf; Jing Wang; Anika Grüneboom; Lennart Kowitz; Sebastian Korste; Matthias Totzeck; Zülal Cibir; Ali Ata Tuz; Vikramjeet Singh; Devon Siemes; Laura Struensee; Daniel R. Engel; Peter Ludewig; Luiza Martins Nas...; Iris Helfrich; Jianxu Chen; Matthias Gunzer; Dirk M. Hermann; Axel Mosig
• Keywords: Mice; 0303 health sciences; 03 medical and health sciences; Imaging, Three-Dimensional; Microscopy, Fluorescence; Medizin; Animals; Brain; Article; Software

AbstractBlood vasculature represents a complex network of vessels with varying lengths and diameters that are precisely organized in space to allow proper tissue function. Light-sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM) is very useful to generate tomograms of tissue vasculature with high spatial accuracy. Yet, quantitative LSFM analysis is still cumbersome and available methods are restricted to single organs and advanced computing hardware. Here, we introduce VesselExpress, an automated software that reliably analyzes six characteristic vascular network parameters including vessel diameter in LSFM data on average computing hardware. VesselExpress is ~100 times faster than other existing vessel analysis tools, requires no user interaction, integrates batch processing, and parallelization. Employing an innovative dual Frangi filter approach we show that obesity induces a large-scale modulation of brain vasculature in mice and that seven other major organs differ strongly in their 3D vascular makeup. Hence, VesselExpress transforms LSFM from an observational to an analytical working tool.