关键词: 凝胶图像, top-hat变换, 弱蛋白质点, 重叠蛋白质点, 形状标记

Abstract: In order to detect the faint and overlapped protein spots in protein gel images, a new approach based on the top-hat transform and shape characteristics is proposed. Top-hat transform is used to enhance faint protein spots region. A marker-controlled watershed algorithm is used to detect the initial outline of the protein spots. Then, shape markers are adaptively extracted by shape characteristics information, and the shape distance image is calculated according to these shape markers. The watershed algorithm is applied again on the shape distance image to separate the overlapped spots. The results of the experiments on different types of real gel images show that the algorithm has higher detection accuracy and better overlapped spots separation rate. It also obtains better detection results from low quality gel images.

Key words: gel images, top-hat transform, faint protein spots, overlapped protein spots, shape markers