FM-track: a fiducial marker tracking software for studying cell mechanics in a three-dimensional environment
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Published version
Date
2020-01
Authors
Lejeune, Emma
Khang, Alex
Sansom, Jacob
Sacks, Michael S.
Version
OA Version
Published version
Citation
Emma Lejeune, Alex Khang, Jacob Sansom, Michael S Sacks. 2020. "FM-Track: A fiducial marker tracking software for studying cell mechanics in a three-dimensional environment." SoftwareX, Volume 11, pp. 100417 - 100417. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2020.100417
Abstract
Tracking the deformation of fiducial markers in the vicinity of living cells embedded in compliant synthetic or biological gels is a powerful means to study cell mechanics and mechanobiology in three-dimensional environments. However, current approaches to track and quantify three-dimensional (3D) fiducial marker displacements remain ad-hoc, can be difficult to implement, and may not produce reliable results. Herein, we present a compact software package entitled “FM-Track,” written in the popular Python language, to facilitate feature-based particle tracking tailored for 3D cell micromechanical environment studies. FM-Track contains functions for pre-processing images, running fiducial marker tracking, and post-processing and visualization. FM-Track can thus aid the study of cellular mechanics and mechanobiology by providing an extensible software platform to more reliably extract complex local 3D cell contractile information in transparent compliant gel systems.
Description
License
"© 2020 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license."