Automated assessment of β-cell area and density per islet and patient using TMEM27 and BACE2 immunofluorescence staining in human pancreatic β-cells.

In this study we aimed to establish an unbiased automatic quantification pipeline to assess islet specific features such as β-cell area and density per islet based on immunofluorescence stainings. To determine these parameters, the in vivo protein expression levels of TMEM27 and BACE2 in pancreatic islets of 32 patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and in 28 non-diabetic individuals (ND) were used as input for the automated pipeline. The output of the automated pipeline was first compared to a previously developed manual area scoring system which takes into account the intensity of the staining as well as the percentage of cells which are stained within an islet.

Graph-based pancreatic islet segmentation for early type 2 diabetes mellitus on histopathological tissue.

It is estimated that in 2010 more than 220 million people will be affected by type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Early evidence indicates that specific markers for alpha and beta cells in pancreatic islets of Langerhans can be used for early T2DM diagnosis. Currently, the analysis of such histological tissues is manually performed by trained pathologists using a light microscope.