Stem cell differentiation determination device, method, and program

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016161464-A1
Application number	US-201615045848-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Feb 17, 2016
Priority date	Aug 22, 2013
Publication date	Jun 9, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A stem cell differentiation determination device includes an observation image acquisition unit that captures an image of an observation region including a stem cell in time series to acquire at least two observation images, a feature amount acquisition unit that acquires at least one feature amount of the stem cell for each observation image, a determination unit that determines whether or not the stem cell has been differentiated, on the basis of the feature amount, a change information acquisition unit that acquires information about a change in the feature amount between the observation images captured in time series or information about a change in a determination result from undifferentiation to differentiation between the observation images, and an output unit that outputs the information about a change in the feature amount or the information about a change in the determination result.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A stem cell differentiation determination device comprising:
an observation image acquisition unit that captures an image of an observation region including a stem cell in time series to acquire at least two observation images; a feature amount acquisition unit that acquires at least two feature amounts of the stem cell within a plurality of regions within the observation region for each observation image; a determination unit that determines whether or not the stem cell has been differentiated within each of the plurality of regions, on the basis of the at least two feature amount; a change information acquisition unit that acquires information about a change in the feature amount within each of the plurality of regions between the observation images captured in time series or information about a change in a determination result from undifferentiation to differentiation within each of the plurality of regions between the observation images; an output unit that outputs the information about a change in the feature amounts within each of the plurality of regions or the information about a change in the determination result within each of the plurality of regions; and a reliability acquisition unit that acquires a degree of reliability for the determination results for each of the plurality of regions, based on the at least two feature amounts within each of the plurality of regions.

2 . The stem cell differentiation determination device according to claim 1 ,
wherein the change information acquisition unit acquires, as the information about a change in the feature amounts within each of the plurality of regions, at least one of information about a time when the feature amount changes, the observation image in which the feature amount has changed, information about a position where the feature amount has changed in the observation region, and information for specifying a stem cell colony in which the feature amount has changed.

3 . The stem cell differentiation determination device according to claim 1 ,
wherein the change information acquisition unit acquires, as the information about a change in the determination result for each of the plurality of regions, at least one of information about a time when the determination result changes, the observation image in which the determination result has changed, information about a position where the determination result has changed in the observation region, and information for specifying a stem cell colony in which the determination result has changed.

4 . The stem cell differentiation determination device according to claim 1 , wherein:
the output unit preferentially outputs the observation image including the regions with low reliability.

5 . The stem cell differentiation determination device according to claim 1 ,
wherein the region is a stem cell colony region.

6 . The stem cell differentiation determination device according to claim 1 ,
wherein the region is a predetermined divided region.

7 . The stem cell differentiation determination device according to claim 1 ,
wherein the output unit outputs the feature amounts for each of the plurality of regions.

8 . The stem cell differentiation determination device according to claim 1 , further comprising:
an imaging unit that captures the observation image, wherein the imaging unit switches an optical magnification or a resolution when the observation image is captured, depending on a set feature amount of interest.

9 . The stem cell differentiation determination device according to claim 1 ,
wherein the output unit outputs the observation image of the entire stem cell colony.

10 . The stem cell differentiation determination device according to claim 1 ,
wherein the output unit outputs the observation image of a portion of the stem cell colony.

11 . The stem cell differentiation determination device according to claim 1 ,
wherein the output unit outputs a plurality of observation images, which are captured before and after the time when the feature amounts of each of the plurality of regions change or the time when the determination result for each of the plurality of regions changes, as a moving image.

12 . A stem cell differentiation determination method comprising:
capturing an image of an observation region including a stem cell in time series to acquire at least two observation images; acquiring at least two feature amount of the stem cell within a plurality of regions within the observation region for each observation image; determining whether or not the stem cell has been differentiated within each of the plurality of regions, on the basis of the at least two feature amounts; acquiring information about a change in the feature amounts within each of the plurality of regions between the observation images captured in time series or information about a change in a determination result from undifferentiation to differentiation within each of the plurality of regions between the observation images, and outputting the information about a change in the feature amounts or the information about a change in the determination result; and further obtaining a degree of reliability for the determination result for each of the plurality of regions based on the at least two feature amounts within each of the plurality of regions.

13 . A non transitory computer readable recording medium having stored therein a stem cell differentiation determination program that causes a computer to function as:
an observation image acquisition unit that captures an image of an observation region including a stem cell in time series to acquire at least two observation images; a feature amount acquisition unit that acquires at least two feature amounts of the stem cell within a plurality of regions within the observation region for each observation image; a determination unit that determines whether or not the stein cell has been differentiated within each of the plurality of regions, on the basis of the at least two feature amount; a change information acquisition unit that acquires information about a change in the feature amount within each of the plurality of regions between the observation images captured in time series or information about a change in a determination result from undifferentiation to differentiation within each of the plurality of regions between the observation images; an output unit that outputs the information about a change in the feature amounts within each of the plurality of regions or the information about a change in the determination result within each of the plurality of regions; and a reliability acquisition unit that acquires a degree of reliability for the determination results for each of the plurality of regions, based on the at least two feature amounts within each of the plurality of regions.

14 . A stem cell differentiation determination apparatus as defined in claim 1 , wherein:
the reliability acquisition unit sets the degree of reliability to be higher for a case in which the determination results based on each of the feature amounts are the same than for a case in which the determination results based on each of the feature amounts are not the same.

Assignees

• Fujifilm Corp

Inventors

• Tsujimoto Takayuki

Classifications

• C12M41/46

  of cellular or enzymatic activity or functionality, e.g. cell viability · CPC title

• C12M41/36

  of biomass, e.g. colony counters or by turbidity measurements (electrooptical investigation of individual particles G01N15/14, flow cytometers G01N15/1404) · CPC title

• G01N33/4833 Primary

  of solid biological material, e.g. tissue samples, cell cultures (tissue in vivo A61B5/00; cell suspensions G01N33/48735) · CPC title