CELL EVALUATION APPARATUS AND METHOD, AND PROGRAM

• US 20160163044A1
• Filed: 07/10/2014
• Published: 06/09/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 07/19/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Kunihiro, Takeshi, Hayakawa, Tomohiro, Matsui, Eriko, Kobayashi, Seiji
• Granted Patent: US 10,157,459 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: C12M 41/46 of cellular or enzymatic activity or functionality, e.g. cell viability
• CPC Class Codes: C12N 5/0657 Cardiomyocytes; Heart cells
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 15/10 Investigating individual particles
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 2015/1006 for cytology
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 33/4833 of solid biological material, e.g. tissue samples, cell cultures tissue in vivo A61B5/00; cell suspensions G01N33/48735
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 33/5005 involving human or animal cells immunoassay G01N33/56966; immunoassays of protozoa G01N33/56905; protozoa in screening assays C12Q1/025
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20021 Dividing image into blocks, subimages or windows
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30024 Cell structures in vitro; Tissue sections in vitro
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30048 Heart; Cardiac
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0012 Biomedical image inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0016 involving temporal comparison
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/246 using feature-based methods, e.g. the tracking of corners or segments
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/32 using correlation-based methods
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/693 Acquisition

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.

Claims

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.