A Computational Modeling Framework for the Arabidopsis Shoot Apical Meristem

摘要: The computable plant project is developing an end-to-end research and modeling framework for the Arabidopsis shoot apical meristem with the goal of producing forward simulations that accurately predict and visualize meristem growth. We observe several cell type specific GFP-markers for growth and differentiation in real-time in live plants with a dedicated confocal laser scanning microscope. We are observing the spatial and temporal relationships between different genes and cell lineages in an effort to understand how primordial cells are progressively specified. Nuclear positions are inferred computationally via a gradient descent algorithm applied to image intensity. A watershed algorithm is used in combination with Voronoi diagrams for image segmentation: when cell membranes are visible, they are detected from the gradient of image data, and when the walls are not visible, they are inferred by the Voronoi …