TY - JOUR
T1 - MarrowQuant Across Aging and Aplasia
T2 - A Digital Pathology Workflow for Quantification of Bone Marrow Compartments in Histological Sections
AU - Tratwal, Josefine
AU - Bekri, David
AU - Boussema, Chiheb
AU - Sarkis, Rita
AU - Kunz, Nicolas
AU - Koliqi, Tereza
AU - Rojas-Sutterlin, Shanti
AU - Schyrr, Frédérica
AU - Tavakol, Daniel Naveed
AU - Campos, Vasco
AU - Scheller, Erica L.
AU - Sarro, Rossella
AU - Bárcena, Carmen
AU - Bisig, Bettina
AU - Nardi, Valentina
AU - de Leval, Laurence
AU - Burri, Olivier
AU - Naveiras, Olaia
N1 - Funding Information:
This work could not have been possible without the expertise and investment of the EPFL Bioimaging and Optics Platform, especially OB, Romain Guiet, and Arne Seitz. We thank members of the Center for the Study of Living Systems at EPFL for animal care, the EPFL Electron Microscopy Facility, namely Graham Knott and Stephanie Rosset for providing osmium and solution preparation, and the EPFL Phenogenomics Unit and E. Meylan for flexibility and assistance on microCT imaging. We thank the Center for Biomedical Imaging Animal veterinarians for their kind help during experiments. The histology data was performed at or with the help of the EPFL Histology Core Facility, notably Dr. Jessica Sordet-Dessimoz. We are grateful to Frédéric Schütz from the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics for valuable statistical guidance, to Teresa Didonna and Bart Deplancke for feedback on the beta version of AdipoQuant, and to Andrew Janowczyk for critical reading of the manuscript. ON would like to thank Prof. Paolo Bianco (Sapienza University, Rome, Italy) as well as Prof. George Q. Daley and Dr. Roderick Bronson (Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA) for the inspiration and encouragement to pursue this work. Funding. ON and lab members were supported by the Machaon Foundation, the Dr. Henri Dubois-Ferrière Dinu Lipatti Leukemia Foundation, the Fondation Pierre Mercier pour la science, the Anna Fuller fund, and Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF/SNSF) Professorship grants PP00P3_144857, PP00P3_176990, and PP00P3_183725, as well as discretionary EPFL SV funds. NK was funded by the Leenards and Jeantet foundation. SR-S was funded by the EPFL Fellows-Marie Sklodowska-Curie scheme. ES was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, U01-DK116317.
Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2020 Tratwal, Bekri, Boussema, Sarkis, Kunz, Koliqi, Rojas-Sutterlin, Schyrr, Tavakol, Campos, Scheller, Sarro, Bárcena, Bisig, Nardi, de Leval, Burri and Naveiras.
PY - 2020/9/24
Y1 - 2020/9/24
N2 - The bone marrow (BM) exists heterogeneously as hematopoietic/red or adipocytic/yellow marrow depending on skeletal location, age, and physiological condition. Mouse models and patients undergoing radio/chemotherapy or suffering acute BM failure endure rapid adipocytic conversion of the marrow microenvironment, the so-called “red-to-yellow” transition. Following hematopoietic recovery, such as upon BM transplantation, a “yellow-to-red” transition occurs and functional hematopoiesis is restored. Gold Standards to estimate BM cellular composition are pathologists' assessment of hematopoietic cellularity in hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained histological sections as well as volumetric measurements of marrow adiposity with contrast-enhanced micro-computerized tomography (CE-μCT) upon osmium-tetroxide lipid staining. Due to user-dependent variables, reproducibility in longitudinal studies is a challenge for both methods. Here we report the development of a semi-automated image analysis plug-in, MarrowQuant, which employs the open-source software QuPath, to systematically quantify multiple bone components in H&E sections in an unbiased manner. MarrowQuant discerns and quantifies the areas occupied by bone, adipocyte ghosts, hematopoietic cells, and the interstitial/microvascular compartment. A separate feature, AdipoQuant, fragments adipocyte ghosts in H&E-stained sections of extramedullary adipose tissue to render adipocyte area and size distribution. Quantification of BM hematopoietic cellularity with MarrowQuant lies within the range of scoring by four independent pathologists, while quantification of the total adipocyte area in whole bone sections compares with volumetric measurements. Employing our tool, we were able to develop a standardized map of BM hematopoietic cellularity and adiposity in mid-sections of murine C57BL/6 bones in homeostatic conditions, including quantification of the highly predictable red-to-yellow transitions in the proximal section of the caudal tail and in the proximal-to-distal tibia. Additionally, we present a comparative skeletal map induced by lethal irradiation, with longitudinal quantification of the “red-to-yellow-to-red” transition over 2 months in C57BL/6 femurs and tibiae. We find that, following BM transplantation, BM adiposity inversely correlates with kinetics of hematopoietic recovery and that a proximal to distal gradient is conserved. Analysis of in vivo recovery through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reveals comparable kinetics. On human trephine biopsies MarrowQuant successfully recognizes the BM compartments, opening avenues for its application in experimental, or clinical contexts that require standardized human BM evaluation.
AB - The bone marrow (BM) exists heterogeneously as hematopoietic/red or adipocytic/yellow marrow depending on skeletal location, age, and physiological condition. Mouse models and patients undergoing radio/chemotherapy or suffering acute BM failure endure rapid adipocytic conversion of the marrow microenvironment, the so-called “red-to-yellow” transition. Following hematopoietic recovery, such as upon BM transplantation, a “yellow-to-red” transition occurs and functional hematopoiesis is restored. Gold Standards to estimate BM cellular composition are pathologists' assessment of hematopoietic cellularity in hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained histological sections as well as volumetric measurements of marrow adiposity with contrast-enhanced micro-computerized tomography (CE-μCT) upon osmium-tetroxide lipid staining. Due to user-dependent variables, reproducibility in longitudinal studies is a challenge for both methods. Here we report the development of a semi-automated image analysis plug-in, MarrowQuant, which employs the open-source software QuPath, to systematically quantify multiple bone components in H&E sections in an unbiased manner. MarrowQuant discerns and quantifies the areas occupied by bone, adipocyte ghosts, hematopoietic cells, and the interstitial/microvascular compartment. A separate feature, AdipoQuant, fragments adipocyte ghosts in H&E-stained sections of extramedullary adipose tissue to render adipocyte area and size distribution. Quantification of BM hematopoietic cellularity with MarrowQuant lies within the range of scoring by four independent pathologists, while quantification of the total adipocyte area in whole bone sections compares with volumetric measurements. Employing our tool, we were able to develop a standardized map of BM hematopoietic cellularity and adiposity in mid-sections of murine C57BL/6 bones in homeostatic conditions, including quantification of the highly predictable red-to-yellow transitions in the proximal section of the caudal tail and in the proximal-to-distal tibia. Additionally, we present a comparative skeletal map induced by lethal irradiation, with longitudinal quantification of the “red-to-yellow-to-red” transition over 2 months in C57BL/6 femurs and tibiae. We find that, following BM transplantation, BM adiposity inversely correlates with kinetics of hematopoietic recovery and that a proximal to distal gradient is conserved. Analysis of in vivo recovery through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reveals comparable kinetics. On human trephine biopsies MarrowQuant successfully recognizes the BM compartments, opening avenues for its application in experimental, or clinical contexts that require standardized human BM evaluation.
KW - adipocyte
KW - bone marrow
KW - cellularity
KW - hematopoietic
KW - hematoxylin and eosin
KW - histology
KW - pathology
KW - skeleton
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85092273257&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fendo.2020.00480
DO - 10.3389/fendo.2020.00480
M3 - Article
C2 - 33071956
AN - SCOPUS:85092273257
SN - 1664-2392
VL - 11
JO - Frontiers in Endocrinology
JF - Frontiers in Endocrinology
M1 - 480
ER -