Figure 1. An automated platform, PAASTA, for tracking and analyzing adhesions.

This platform subjects raw images to a series of steps to identify adhesions. A flow chart detailing each step with a corresponding output image is shown. A segmentation pipeline (red lines), where images are processed in order to segment adhesions, is followed by a tracking pipeline (blue lines) that identifies and tracks adhesions through a series of time-lapse images. Upon completion of the track assignment process for a particular frame, an overlay image is generated which displays the ID numbers for each adhesion in the frame. These images may be used for visual inspection of the automated tracking assignments. Intensity values are calculated for all tracked adhesions at every time point using the background-corrected intensity image. When the tracking assignment is completed for all the frames, the final adhesion ID numbers along with centroid locations and intensity values are exported to comma-separated text files for further analysis.