REAVER

REAVER segments and quantifies high-resolution 2D fluorescent images of blood vessel networks to compute vessel architecture metrics.

Key Features:

• High-resolution 2D fluorescent image analysis: Processes high-resolution 2D fluorescent images to capture the spatial structure of blood vessel networks.
• Quantitative metrics: Computes vessel length density, vessel area fraction, mean vessel diameter, and branchpoint count for vascular architecture characterization.
• Segmentation accuracy: Performs pixel-by-pixel vessel segmentation and demonstrates superior accuracy compared to alternative image analysis programs.
• Manual and automated integration: Integrates automated segmentation with manual curation to refine segmentations and derived metrics.
• High-throughput unbiased analysis: Enables high-throughput, unbiased quantification of vascular network features across image datasets.

Scientific Applications:

• Angiogenesis and vascular remodeling studies: Quantifies structural changes in angiogenesis, capillary regression, wound healing, and developmental vascular processes.
• Pharmacological intervention and drug testing: Evaluates effects of pharmacological interventions on vessel architecture.
• Disease-state characterization: Assesses vascular network alterations associated with pathological conditions.
• Therapeutic development and pathology research: Provides quantitative vascular metrics to support therapeutic development and pathology investigations.

Methodology:

Performance was assessed using a dataset of manually analyzed images from diverse murine tissues as a ground-truth benchmark; validation confirmed high accuracy and precision across the quantified vessel architecture metrics and the method supports combining manual curation with automated analysis.