Cell evaluation apparatus and method, and program

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016163044-A1
Application number	US-201414904861-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jul 10, 2014
Priority date	Jul 19, 2013
Publication date	Jun 9, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

The present technology relates to a cell evaluation apparatus and method, and a program that are capable of easily searching for an area to be observed within cardiomyocytes without requiring special preparation.
The cell evaluation apparatus includes: a motion detecting section configured to detect motion of cultured cardiomyocytes for each of partial areas of a plurality of observation fields on the cultured cardiomyocytes; a motion amount calculating section configured to calculate a motion amount of the detected motion; a pulsation information calculating section configured to calculate pulsation information on a characteristic amount of pulsations of the cultured cardiomyocytes on the basis of the calculated motion amount; an evaluation value calculating section configured to calculate an evaluation value corresponding to the plurality of observation fields, calculated on the basis of the pulsation information; and a field determining section configured to determine an observation field to be observed on the cultured cardiomyocytes, on the basis of the evaluation value.

First claim

1 . A cell evaluation apparatus, comprising:
a motion detecting section configured to detect motion of cultured cardiomyocytes for each of partial areas of a plurality of observation fields on the cultured cardiomyocytes; a motion amount calculating section configured to calculate a motion amount of the detected motion; a pulsation information calculating section configured to calculate pulsation information on a characteristic amount of pulsations of the cultured cardiomyocytes on the basis of the calculated motion amount; an evaluation value calculating section configured to calculate an evaluation value corresponding to the plurality of observation fields, calculated on the basis of the pulsation information; and a field determining section configured to determine an observation field to be observed on the cultured cardiomyocytes, on the basis of the evaluation value.

2 . The cell evaluation apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
the pulsation information is a pulsation area of the cultured cardiomyocytes within the observation field.

3 . The cell evaluation apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
the motion detecting section detects the motion for each of the partial areas in each of frames of a moving image of the observation area, and the pulsation information calculating section generates, on the basis of the motion amount for each of the partial areas of the plurality of frames of the moving image, wave shape information representing the pulsations of the cultured cardiomyocytes of each of the partial areas.

4 . The cell evaluation apparatus according to claim 3 , wherein
the pulsation information is a number of pulsations of the cultured cardiomyocytes within the observation field within a unit time, calculated on the basis of the wave shape information.

5 . The cell evaluation apparatus according to claim 3 , wherein
the pulsation information is a contraction time or a relaxation time of the pulsations of the cultured cardiomyocytes within the observation field, calculated on the basis of the wave shape information.

6 . The cell evaluation apparatus according to claim 3 , wherein
the pulsation information is a contraction speed or a relaxation speed of the pulsations of the cultured cardiomyocytes within the observation field, calculated on the basis of the wave shape information.

7 . The cell evaluation apparatus according to claim 3 , wherein
the pulsation information is a correlation coefficient of a wave shape of the pulsations between the partial areas of the cultured cardiomyocytes within the observation field, calculated on the basis of the wave shape information.

8 . The cell evaluation apparatus according to claim 3 , wherein
the pulsation information is a propagation speed and a propagation direction of the pulsations of the cultured cardiomyocytes within the observation field, calculated on the basis of the wave shape information.

9 . The cell evaluation apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
the evaluation section calculates the evaluation value that corresponds to each of the plurality of observation fields, before and after predetermined processing performed on the cultured cardiomyocytes, and the observation field determining section determines the observation field by selecting a predetermined number of observation fields from the plurality of observation fields on the basis of a difference between the evaluation values before and after the predetermined processing performed on the cultured cardiomyocytes.

10 . A cell evaluation method, comprising:
detecting, by a motion detecting section, motion of cultured cardiomyocytes for each of partial areas of a plurality of observation fields on the cultured cardiomyocytes; calculating, by a motion amount calculating section, a motion amount of the detected motion; calculating, by a pulsation information calculating section, pulsation information on a characteristic amount of pulsations of the cultured cardiomyocytes on the basis of the calculated motion amount; calculating, by an evaluation value calculating section, an evaluation value corresponding to the plurality of observation fields, calculated on the basis of the pulsation information; and determining, by a field determining section, an observation field to be observed on the cultured cardiomyocytes, on the basis of the evaluation value.

11 . A program causing a computer to function as a cell evaluation apparatus comprising:
a motion detecting section configured to detect motion of cultured cardiomyocytes for each of partial areas of a plurality of observation fields on the cultured cardiomyocytes; a motion amount calculating section configured to calculate a motion amount of the detected motion; a pulsation information calculating section configured to calculate pulsation information on a characteristic amount of pulsations of the cultured cardiomyocytes on the basis of the calculated motion amount; an evaluation value calculating section configured to calculate an evaluation value corresponding to the plurality of observation fields, calculated on the basis of the pulsation information; and a field determining section configured to determine an observation field to be observed on the cultured cardiomyocytes, on the basis of the evaluation value.

Assignees

• Sony Corp

Inventors

• Kunihiro Takeshi
• Hayakawa Tomohiro
• Matsui Eriko
• Kobayashi Seiji

Classifications

• G01N33/4833

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

• G06T7/32

  using correlation-based methods · CPC title

• G01N15/10

  Investigating individual particles · CPC title

• G01N2015/1006

  for cytology · CPC title

• G06T2207/20021

  Dividing image into blocks, subimages or windows · CPC title