E-Cadherin Radial Distribution Characterization for Mutation Detection Purposes

Structural and mechanical properties of the tissues are dependent on the physical linkage between cells. E-Cadherin is a key component on this adhesion mechanism and mutations on its coding gene may produce dysfunctional molecules that compromise the cell-cell linkage and increase the risk of cancer. The stationary distribution of E-Cadherin is characterized by a clear increased concentration at the membrane where it plays its adhesion role. However, for mutated molecules, the traffic dynamics of E-Cadherin is disturbed and different distributions of E-Cadherin across the cell are observed. In this work a computational tool is proposed to semi-automatically help in the segmentation of cells from microscopy images of fluorescence with tagged E-Cadherin and to compute an image of radial profiles of the molecule distribution from the center of the cell toward the membrane. The image of radial intensity profiles of E-Cadherin distribution depend on the location of the nucleus and on the specific geometry of each cell which is not related with the functional role of the molecules. In this paper the radial profiles are geometrically compensated, to cope with shape and size differences among cells, and a representative profile of the tissue is obtained for mutation detection purposes. Examples with real microscopy images of fluorescence of epithelial cells of the stomach are presented to illustrate the method.