System and method for high-content oncology assay
View Patent ↗The present invention provides an apparatus, system, method and computer program and computer program product for analyzing cellular samples. One embodiment of the apparatus and method provides a multiparameter assay that provides information with respect to cell proliferation, cell cycling and cell death. The multiparameter assay is particularly useful for assessing and screening candidate compounds for anti-cancer utility.
1. A system for analyzing a sample comprising cells, comprising:
an image capture device to gather luminescence intensity values of nuclei of cells stained with a fluorescent DNA-binding reporter molecule; and
a computer connected to said image capture device, said computer including
a peripheral interface circuit to receive said luminescence intensity values,
a central processing unit connected to said peripheral interface circuit, and
a memory connected to said central processing unit, said memory comprising executable instructions for:
calculating the total nuclear fluorescence of each cell of a population of cells; and
determining the cell phase of a cell in said cell population by its total nuclear fluorescence.
2. The system of claim 1 , wherein said total nuclear brightness is expressed as a mean brightness for each cell.
3. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a display device connected to said computer.
4. The system of claim 3 , further comprising executable instructions for displaying a histogram of the cell phase of said cells on said display device.
5. The system of claim 1 , wherein said memory further comprise instructions for:
comparing total nuclear brightness to standard deviation of nuclear brightness of a cell to produce a coordinate, and
determining the cell cycle phase of said cell using said coordinate.
6. The system of claim 5 , wherein said determining comprises filtering said coordinate.
7. The system of claim 6 , wherein said determining comprises filtering said coordinate through a plurality of filters, each of which defines coordinates corresponding to specific phases of the cell cycle.
8. The system of claim 5 , wherein said determining includes plotting said coordinate on a graph showing total nuclear brightness verses standard deviation of nuclear brightness of a population of cells.