An Image Processing Algorithm for Facile and Reproducible Quantification of Vomocytosis.

Vomocytosis is a process that occurs when internalized fungal pathogens escape from phagocytes without compromising the viability of the pathogen and the host cell. Manual quantification of time-lapse microscopy videos is currently used as the standard to study pathogen behavior and vomocytosis incidence. However, human-driven quantification of vomocytosis (and the closely related phenomenon, exocytosis) is incredibly burdensome, especially when a large volume of cells and interactions needs to be analyzed.

Vomocytosis of Cryptococcus neoformans cells from murine, bone marrow-derived dendritic cells.

Cryptococcus neoformans (CN) cells survive within the acidic phagolysosome of macrophages (MΦ) for extended times, then escape without impacting the viability of the host cell via a phenomenon that has been coined 'vomocytosis'. Through this mechanism, CN disseminate throughout the body, sometimes resulting in a potentially fatal condition-Cryptococcal Meningitis (CM). Justifiably, vomocytosis studies have focused primarily on MΦ, as alveolar MΦ within the lung act as first responders that ultimately expel this fungal pathogen.