Use of models in studying macrophage cell images and the underlying biological processes

摘要

In basic biomedical research the details of many of the biological processes under study are not well understood; for example, the mechanism which allows macrophage cells to engulf and destroy foreign material. An imaging study of the effect of drugs on this process led to the development of a descriptive model, based on a computer graphics representation of the experimental biological images, to obtain a better understanding of the information obtained from the images. Deductive models have also been designed to investigate the underlying mechanisms of the process and to obtain maximum information from the existing data. The results of the model are presented as a graphic display in the same form as the descriptive model to allow for direct comparison between the model and the experimental data. This approach is generally useful in many areas of microscopy but it is illustrated here in a study of the action of macrophage cells.