The rapid expansion of biotechnologies paves the way for numerous applications in the field of genetics, such as the classification of gene expression profiles, functional genomics, diagnosis and medical treatment support. These
applications rely on the synthesis of biochips, the simulation of biological interactions, their analysis and interpretation using an optical sensing system such as fluorescence or surface
plasmon resonance.
The analysis of DNA::DNA interactions using these technologies consists in grafting markers onto the DNA sequences being studied in the form of spots on a glass support (biochips), causing the marked DNA sequences to interact with the target DNA sequence (hybridation) and monitoring the progress of the reaction in real time using an optical sensing system. The images produced reflect the quantity of matter of each
spot having interacted with the target between two successive readings. Quantifying the hybridation of each spot requires precise segmentation of the spots on these images, in spite of their high variability in terms of shape,
intensity and spatial location.
The IDIM project conducted in collaboration with the Molecular Genetics Center in Orsay (CGM) is
contributing to the development of tools for the automatic segmentation and analysis of spots in dynamic biochip images.
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