PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Elisabeth C. Kugler AU - Andrik Rampun AU - Timothy J.A. Chico AU - Paul A. Armitage TI - Segmentation of the Zebrafish Brain Vasculature from Light Sheet Fluorescence Microscopy Datasets AID - 10.1101/2020.07.21.213843 DP - 2020 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 2020.07.21.213843 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/07/22/2020.07.21.213843.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/07/22/2020.07.21.213843.full AB - Light sheet fluorescent microscopy allows imaging of zebrafish vascular development in great detail. However, interpretation of data often relies on visual assessment and approaches to validate image analysis steps are broadly lacking. Here, we compare different enhancement and segmentation approaches to extract the zebrafish cerebral vasculature, provide comprehensive validation, study segmentation robustness, examine sensitivity, apply the validated method to quantify embryonic cerebrovascular volume, and examine applicability to different transgenic reporter lines. The best performing segmentation method was used to train different deep learning networks for segmentation. We found that U-Net based architectures outperform SegNet. While there was a slight overestimation of vascular volume using the U-Net methodologies, variances were low, suggesting that sensitivity to biological changes would still be obtained.HighlightsGeneral filtering is less applicable than Sato enhancement to enhance zebrafish cerebral vessels.Biological data sets help to overcome the lack of segmentation gold-standards and phantom models.Sato enhancement followed by Otsu thresholding is highly accurate, robust, and sensitive.Direct generalization of the segmentation approach to transgenics, other than the one optimized for, should be treated with caution.Deep learning based segmentation is applicable to the zebrafish cerebral vasculature, with U-Net based architectures outperforming SegNet architectures.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.BAbasilar arteryCNRcontrast-to-noise ratioCtAcentral arterydpfdays post fertilisationFWHMFull-Width-Half-MaximumGFGeneral Filteringhpfhours post fertilisationLSFMlight sheet fluorescence microscopyMMCtAmiddle mesencephalic central arteryPMBCprimordial midbrain channelROIregion of interestSESato Enhancement