Image analysis and assay system

1 . A method of calculating a measure of the joint distribution of reporters in biological cells, comprising:

providing at least two reporters that can be visualized in cells;

acquiring digital images of the reporters in cells; and

using an at least two-dimensional distribution of values of the images of reporters to calculate a measure characteristic of a condition of the cells.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein there are N reporters, and wherein the step of using includes a step of forming at least one histogram selected from the group consisting of an N-dimensional histogram of values of reporters in the set of images of the same objects, a number of 2-dimensional histograms of the values of reporters in the set of images of the same objects, and a number of histograms of dimensionality between 2 and N of the values of reporters in the set of images of the same objects.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of using includes a step of normalizing intensities of at least one of the reporter images.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of using is performed on an individual cell-by-cell basis.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of using is performed without identifying individual cells.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of using includes a step of removing artifacts from the image(s).

7 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the step of using further includes fitting a model to the N-dimensional histogram, and wherein the measures are parameters of the model.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first reporter is associated with a cell compartment and the second reporter is associated with a protein that can change its localization from one cell compartment to another cell compartment under experimental conditions.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first reporter is associated with the nucleus and the second reporter is associated with a protein that can change its localization from cytoplasm to nucleus, or nucleus to cytoplasm, under experimental conditions.

10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein there are N reporters, wherein the step of using includes a step of forming at least one histogram selected from the group consisting of an N-dimensional histogram of values of reporters in the set of images of the same objects, a number of 2-dimensional histograms of the values of reporters in the set of images of the same objects, and a number of histograms of dimensionality between 2 and N of the values of reporters in the set of images of the same objects, wherein the step of using further includes fitting a model to the N-dimensional histogram, wherein the measures are parameters of the model, wherein the model is a straight line segment of variable length approximating the right side of the distribution of the translocating protein reporter versus nuclear reporter, and wherein the measure is the slope of this line.

11 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the N-dimensional histogram is viewed as an M-dimensional vector (M is the total number of bins in such histogram), wherein each cell (or a cluster of cells, or the whole image) is viewed as a point in the M-dimensional space, and wherein cells are analyzed using a method of pattern recognition.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein such method of pattern recognition is the classification of cells into predefined classes, and wherein the measures are the degree of similarity to such class and the class name.

13 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the population of cells is characterized by a statistical measure of position or by a statistical measure of variation.

14 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the population of cells is characterized by principal component analysis (PCA) of the histograms of distributions of the individual cell measures.

15 . A method of calculating a measure of the joint distribution of reporters in biological cells, comprising:

providing at least two reporters that can be visualized in cells;

acquiring digital images of the reporters in cells in at least two test conditions;

using an at least 2-dimensional distribution of reporter values to calculate measures characteristic of a condition of the cells; and

providing a quality metric calculated on cellular measures in the at least two test conditions.

16 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the step of using includes an image analysis method dependent on a set of numerical parameters.

17 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the step of using includes the step of selecting image subsets that give the best quality metric.

18 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the test conditions are different concentrations of a reagent.

19 . The method of claim 18 , wherein the reagent is a candidate drug compound.

20 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the test conditions are different time points of a certain process.