Automated morphometric analysis with SMorph software reveals plasticity induced by antidepressant therapy in hippocampal astrocytes

Sethi, P and Virmani, G and Gupta, K and Thumu, SCR and Ramanan, N and Marathe, S (2021) Automated morphometric analysis with SMorph software reveals plasticity induced by antidepressant therapy in hippocampal astrocytes. In: Journal of Cell Science, 134 (12).

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Abstract

Nervous system development and plasticity involve changes in cellular morphology, making morphological analysis a valuable exercise in the study of nervous system development, function and disease. Morphological analysis is a time-consuming exercise requiring meticulous manual tracing of cellular contours and extensions. We have developed a software tool, called SMorph, to rapidly analyze the morphology of cells of the nervous system. SMorph performs completely automated Sholl analysis. It extracts 23 morphometric features based on cell images and Sholl analysis parameters, followed by principal component analysis (PCA). SMorph was tested on neurons, astrocytes and microglia and reveals subtle changes in cell morphology. Using SMorph, we found that chronic 21-day treatment with the antidepressant desipramine results in a significant structural remodeling in hippocampal astrocytes in mice. Given the proposed involvement of astroglial structural changes and atrophy in major depression in humans, our results reveal a novel kind of structural plasticity induced by chronic antidepressant administration. © 2021. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Journal of Cell Science
Publisher:	Company of Biologists Ltd
Additional Information:	The copyright for this article belongs to Company of Biologists Ltd.
Keywords:	antidepressant agent; desipramine; glial fibrillary acidic protein; lipopolysaccharide; antidepressant agent, adult; animal experiment; animal model; animal tissue; Article; astrocyte; atrophy; cell size; controlled study; dentate gyrus granular layer; hippocampal CA1 region; hippocampus; image analysis; image processing; immunohistochemistry; major depression; male; microglia; morphology; morphometry; mouse; nerve cell; nerve cell plasticity; nervous system development; nonhuman; principal component analysis; SMorph software; software; stab wound; stratum oriens; structural remodeling; animal; nerve cell plasticity; software, Animals; Antidepressive Agents; Astrocytes; Hippocampus; Mice; Neuronal Plasticity; Neurons; Software
Department/Centre:	Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Neuroscience
Date Deposited:	06 Jun 2023 08:53
Last Modified:	06 Jun 2023 08:53
URI:	https://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/81790

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