Textural Analysis of a Fibronectin Network During Early Embryogenesis
Issue Date
2011-07-31Author
Loganathan, Rajprasad
Publisher
University of Kansas
Format
86 pages
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
M.S.
Discipline
Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
Rights
This item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this thesis/dissertation is held by the author.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Fibronectin is a major extracellular matrix molecular component that plays a critical role in embryonic cell motility and morphogenesis. During early development, the fibronectin molecular network is nearly ubiquitous in distribution across the entire embryonic volume. As a result, the embryonic fibronectin distribution is functionally relevant to both cell motility and organogenesis. Despite its biological importance, the structural attributes of embryonic fibronectin distribution are poorly understood. The textural features of an extracellular matrix network like that of fibronectin is not known. By marking the embryonic tissue, obtained during specific stages of development, using fibronectin indirect immunofluorescence, fluorescent microscopy images capturing the embryonic fibronectin distribution were obtained. Using the properties of the gray scale co-occurrence matrix, textural attributes of a fibronectin network was derived for quail embryos during their early stages of morphogenesis. As a result, textural properties like inertia, correlation, uniformity, entropy and homogeneity were assessed for the medial (including the embryonic anteroposterior axis) and lateral (excluding the embryonic anteroposterior axis) fibronectin . The results not only demonstrated a noticeable heterogeneity of fibronectin textural properties across the embryonic regions examined, but also across the developmental stages that were studied. The spatial anisotropy and the temporal evolution across the developmental span in the textural attributes of embryonic fibronectin may have functional consequences for cell motility and morphogenesis. With this thesis, textural analysis has found yet another application, viz. the study of the surface structural attributes of an extracellular matrix protein network in the context of developmental biology. The work presented in this thesis is the first of its kind in applying texture analysis with gray scale co-occurrence matrix method to study the spatial distribution of fibronectin matrix within a given stage of embryonic development and the temporal textural changes as the embryonic development progresses from stage 5 through stage 9.
Collections
- Engineering Dissertations and Theses [1055]
- Theses [3944]
Items in KU ScholarWorks are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.
We want to hear from you! Please share your stories about how Open Access to this item benefits YOU.