Nuclear shape software

<charinsert> A technique allowing to estimate nuclear shape asymmetry in digital images captured from histological preparations <charinsert>

Implemented in a software package this technique quantifies asymmetry using two scenarios. Within the first one, nuclear pixels laying outside the largest inscribed circle are identified. According to the second scenario, the algorithm searches for nuclear pixels lacking pixel-partners symmetric with respect to the nuclear area’s centroid. In both cases the proportion of ‘asymmetric’ pixels is used to estimate the feature of interest. The technique was validated on images of cell nuclei having distinctive shape phenotypes.