Trypsin-Banding Induced Volume Changes of Human Metaphase Chromosomes Analyzed by Scanning Force Microscopy

A procedure for volume estimation based on scanning force microscopy images is applied to the study of banding-induced structural changes of chromosomes. Therefore, metaphase chromosomes were imaged before and after trypsin digestion, and the resulting three-dimensional data sets were used for a determination of the volumes of the imaged structures. The procedure is based on a histogram-based thresholding. The estimated volume is corrected for the background signal using the average background value from the histogram, so that an automated analysis of the images is possible. A first set of experimental data processed according to this approach is presented.