STrack

STrack automates tracking of bacterial cells in time-lapse microscopy to quantify single-cell lineages and population dynamics.

Key Features:

• Automated Cell Tracking: Tracks individual bacterial cells across time-lapse sequences and maintains cell lineages through the imaging period.
• High Consistency and Accuracy: In comparative analyses with three other published tracking tools, STrack correctly identified over 80% of cell lineages on average against manually annotated ground-truth data.
• Implementation: Implemented in Python.
• Efficiency and Speed: Provides faster run times compared to equivalent tools, enabling analysis of large time-lapse microscopy datasets.
• Output Generation: Produces comprehensive cell tables suitable for downstream lineage analysis.

Scientific Applications:

• Single-Cell Growth Dynamics: Enables quantification of growth dynamics and behavior at the single-bacterium level through lineage tracking.
• Population and Lineage Analysis: Supports analysis of cellular behaviors, population dynamics, and lineage-specific traits across bacterial strains with varying morphologies.

Methodology:

Applies image processing algorithms that perform alignment and resolution management to maintain tracking integrity in complex time-lapse microscopy datasets and has been benchmarked against manually annotated ground-truth and three other tracking tools.