AI analysis of super-resolution microscopy: Biological discovery in the absence of ground truth.

Journal: The Journal of cell biology
Published Date:

Abstract

Super-resolution microscopy, or nanoscopy, enables the use of fluorescent-based molecular localization tools to study molecular structure at the nanoscale level in the intact cell, bridging the mesoscale gap to classical structural biology methodologies. Analysis of super-resolution data by artificial intelligence (AI), such as machine learning, offers tremendous potential for the discovery of new biology, that, by definition, is not known and lacks ground truth. Herein, we describe the application of weakly supervised paradigms to super-resolution microscopy and its potential to enable the accelerated exploration of the nanoscale architecture of subcellular macromolecules and organelles.

Authors

  • Ivan R Nabi
    Life Sciences Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z3, Canada. irnabi@mail.ubc.ca.
  • Ben Cardoen
    School of Computing Science, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6, Canada.
  • Ismail M Khater
    Medical Image Analysis Lab, School of Computing Science, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada.
  • Guang Gao
    Life Sciences Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z3, Canada.
  • Timothy H Wong
    Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences, Life Sciences Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
  • Ghassan Hamarneh
    Medical Image Analysis Lab, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada. Electronic address: hamarneh@sfu.ca.