Analysis of Cellular Feature Differences of Astrocytomas with Distinct Mutational Profiles Using Digitized Histopathology Images

TL;DR

This study introduces an efficient framework for quantitatively analyzing cellular phenotypic differences in histopathology images, specifically applied to astrocytomas with different IDH mutational profiles, aiding molecular diagnosis.

Contribution

A novel, self-reliant analysis method that enables quantitative comparison of cellular features across molecular groups in histopathology images.

Findings

Successfully distinguished phenotypic differences between IDH mutant and wildtype astrocytomas

Provides a generic framework applicable to various cell-based biomedical research

Demonstrates the potential for improved molecular diagnosis through image analysis

Abstract

Cellular phenotypic features derived from histopathology images are the basis of pathologic diagnosis and are thought to be related to underlying molecular profiles. Due to overwhelming cell numbers and population heterogeneity, it remains challenging to quantitatively compute and compare features of cells with distinct molecular signatures. In this study, we propose a self-reliant and efficient analysis framework that supports quantitative analysis of cellular phenotypic difference across distinct molecular groups. To demonstrate efficacy, we quantitatively analyze astrocytomas that are molecularly characterized as either Isocitrate Dehydrogenase (IDH) mutant (MUT) or wildtype (WT) using imaging data from The Cancer Genome Atlas database. Representative cell instances that are phenotypically different between these two groups are retrieved after segmentation, feature computation, data pruning, dimensionality reduction, and unsupervised clustering. Our analysis is generic and can be applied to a wide set of cell-based biomedical research.