Live-cell tracking with lineage trees
ConductVision Live Cell runs on your lab's own PC, where it follows cells through long time-lapse movies and measures how they move, grow and divide.
Who it is for
Cell biology, cancer and immunology groups
Follow how cells move and divide in each condition you image.
Stem cell and organoid labs
Trace the descendants of each cell through their divisions in a lineage tree.
Core imaging facilities
Run batches of movies for the many groups your facility serves.
Opens the files your microscope saves
It tracks cells in phase contrast, brightfield and fluorescence movies.
Files it reads
- Nikon ND2
- Zeiss CZI
- Leica LIF
- Olympus OIB and OIF
- OME-TIFF, multi-page TIFF or a folder of TIFF images
- Incucyte image exports, with one TIFF per channel, well, field and scan time
A file with several positions, wells or fields holds one movie for each. Each movie is tracked separately.
What it reads from each file
It shows you these values to confirm.
- Positions or wells
- Fields
- Channels and their names
- Frame count
- Frame interval
- Pixel size
- Bit depth
- Start time
Measures are in µm and minutes.
If a file lacks the pixel size or frame interval, the program tells you. Until you enter the missing value, it reports results in pixels and frames.
Your files stay where they are
It reads movies where your lab keeps them, on the PC or on the lab's network drives.
It never copies or changes your files.
If a movie file moves, the program asks where it went and checks that it is the same file before using it.
Tracks cells through their divisions, into lineage trees
ConductVision Live Cell outlines the cells in each frame and links each cell from frame to frame, through its divisions.
Each cell gets its own track. The track ends when the cell divides. A cell and all its descendants share one lineage tree.
Movie screen
Tails show where each cell has been, and marks show where it divided.
Select a cell to see its track, its lineage and its measurements over time.
Lineage screen
Each lineage tree runs along a time axis.
Click a branch to open that cell in the movie.
Fix tracks, lowest-scoring links first
Each link between frames gets a score.
You choose the score below which a link goes on the review list.
Edits you can make
- Keep or break each flagged link, or join two tracks into one
- Review from the keyboard, with its own key for each decision and for undo
- Correct an outline
Your edits update the tracks and the measurements.
The review list, in order
- Links below the threshold, lowest score first
- Divisions whose score falls below the threshold
- Lost tracks
What it measures
Per frame
- Cell count
- Confluence, the share of the field of view covered by cells
- Divisions
- Tracks that start or end
Per track
- Duration
- Path length
- Net displacement
- Speed
- Straightness
- Area over time
- Mean intensity in each channel over time
- Cycle time, from the division that began the track to the one that ended it
- How the track ended (divided, left the field of view, lost, or the movie ended)
Per lineage
- Generations
- Divisions
- Time to first division
Population
- Mean squared displacement (MSD) and its log-log slope, alpha
- Distributions of speed, cycle time and time to first division, per movie and per condition
- Doubling time, fitted to the cell count over time
Alpha is near 1 for a random walk, above 1 for directed movement and below 1 for confined movement.
Run plates and compare conditions
Set up each experiment as plates, wells, fields and conditions.
- Track a whole plate as a batch and follow its progress
- Compare the measures between conditions
- Plot intensity traces for each channel
Export tables, charts and tracks
- CSV
- Four tables. Their rows are tracks, frames, cells in each frame and MSD lags.
- Charts
- Each chart as PNG or SVG.
- TrackMate XML
- Your tracks, to continue in Fiji.
- Cell Tracking Challenge format
- The res_track.txt file and label masks.
Exports leave out file paths unless you ask for them.
Your PC and your data
Your PC
- Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit
- An NVIDIA graphics card
- Installs and runs without internet
Your data
Results stay on your lab's PC and network drives, with your movies.
The program sends no usage data.
Results hold cell data and no personal data.
Live Cell or ConductVision Image?
ConductVision Image
ConductVision Image analyzes images and short movies.
Use it for segmentation, counting, colonies, microspheres and multiplex immunofluorescence.
ConductVision Live Cell
ConductVision Live Cell is a separate program for long time-lapse experiments.
It covers lineage, movement, division, track review and comparisons between conditions.
Questions
Can it read other formats?
Only after you convert them to TIFF. It does not read PNG, JPG, MP4, OIR or VSI files directly.
Does it control the microscope?
No. It tracks movies after your imager saves them.
Does it measure cell death or cell cycle phase?
Not yet.
Does it track 3D (z-stack) movies?
Not yet. It tracks 2D movies over time.
How do I get it?
Ask to join the pilot, and tell us which microscope your lab uses and the files it saves.
Join the ConductVision Live Cell pilot
ConductVision Live Cell is in early access. Pilot labs install it on their own PC and track their own movies.
