Yuval, Omer et al. (2015) International Worm Meeting "Menorah Analyzer - a MATLAB based software for the analysis of 2D images of the PVD neuron in C.elegans."

Yuval, Omer, Podbilewicz, Benjamin, Shemesh, Tom, Gattegno, Tamar

[International Worm Meeting, 2015]

Nociceptive neurons develop a complex dendritic arbor to sense noxious stimuli, which enables animals to react to environmental insults and perform self-protective behaviors. The arborized mechanoreceptor neuron (PVD) is a multi-dendritic nociceptor neuron in C. elegans. PVDL and PVDR form repeating, non-overlapping dendritic trees, called Menorahs.The morphology of the PVD is thought to be related to its function, with aberrant morphologies associated with impaired physiology. However, no rigorous quantification, protocol or procedure has been developed in order to accurately and uniformly investigate the PVD structures and specifically the menorahs.Here, we present a software tool, Menorah Analyzer, for the automatic analysis of the morphology of the PVD neuron and the menorahs structures. The output of the Analyzer is a quantized reconstruction of the PVD and extraction of key morphological features, such as density of branches, ordering of individual dendrites, as well as length, curvature and alignment of branch segments. Using this automated analysis of the dendritic arbor will enable the generation of a database of various morphologies, as well as to track the time evolution of the structures by processing movies.Ultimately, we will be able to use the software to process any 2D image of the PVD neuron (and perhaps other neurons), and learn about the connection between neuronal morphology and behavior, by comparing quantitative data of WTmutants, youngadult, socialisolated etc.The software accepts as an input one or more 2D images of the PVD neuron - either the original images from the confocal microscope or a manual reconstruction using a tablet.The output, which is displayed in excel tables and graphs, is a reconstruction of each image with different colors representing different branch orders and the extraction of morphological parameters, analyzed per image and as a function of time.Our main biological question is how different neuronal morphologies (junctions, 90o turns etc.) and specifically the Menorahs, form and how are they maintained. We are using the Menorah Analyzer along with developmental genetic techniques in order to answer this question.