Mesh-Loosening Quantification of Inhibition of Angiogenic Tube Formation Through Image Analysis

Abstract Angiogenesis is a key step in tumor development, and anti-angiogenesis processes are important for drug discovery and development. The dose–response relationship for an inhibitor is studied using images of endothelial cells captured in vitro by Matrigel assay. In order to improve the quantification of anti-angiogenic processes for faithful synchronization with continuous variation of an inhibitor dose, we have developed an automated image analysis method—mesh-loosening analysis—to evaluate the disruption of tube formation from endothelial cells. The method is based on numerical and morphological changes of mesh regions surrounded by tubes and perceived by considering the spaces between the tubes rather than the tubes themselves. The anti-angiogenic effect of suramin is analyzed comprehensively using four attributes obtained from the mesh regions. The relation between the dose of suramin and response shows an exponential curve that can be approximated as a sigmoid function, even though human asses...