A Guided Tour of Selected Image Processing and Analysis Methods for Fluorescence and Electron Microscopy

Microscopy imaging, including fluorescence microscopy and electron microscopy, has taken a prominent role in life science research and medicine due to its ability to investigate the 3D interior of live cells and organisms. A long-term research in bio-imaging at the sub-cellular and cellular scales consists then in inferring the relationships between the dynamics of macromolecules and their functions. In this area, image processing and analysis methods are now essential to understand the dynamic organization of groups of interacting molecules inside molecular machineries and to address issues in fundamental biology driven by advances in molecular biology, optics and technology. In this paper, we present recent advances in fluorescence and electron microscopy and we focus on dedicated image processing and analysis methods required to quantify phenotypes for a limited number but typical studies in cell imaging.