Quantitative analysis of morphological changes in yeast colonies growing on solid medium: the eccentricity and Fourier indices

摘要

The colony shape of four yeast species growing on agar medium wasmeasured for 116 days by image analysis. Initially, all the colonies are circular, with regular edges. The loss of circularity can be quantitatively estimated by the eccentricity index, Ei, calculated as theudratio between their orthogonal vertical and horizontal diameters. Ei can increase from 1 (complete circularity) to a maximum of 1.17–1.30, depending on the species. One colonyudinhibits its neighbour only when it has reached a threshold area. Then, Ei of the inhibited colony increases proportionally to the area of the inhibitory colony. The initial distance between colonies affects those threshold values but not the proportionality, Ei/area; thisudinhibition affects the shape but not the total surface of the colony. The appearance of irregularities in the edges is associated, in all the species, not with age but with nutrient exhaustion. The edge irregularity can be quantified by the Fourier index, Fi, calculated byudthe minimum number of Fourier coefficients that are needed to describe the colony contour with 99% fitness. An ad hoc function has been developed in Matlab v. 7.0 to automate theudcomputation of the Fourier coefficients. In young colonies, Fi has a value between 2 (circumference) and 3 (ellipse). These values are maintained in mature colonies of Debaryomyces, but can reach values up to 14 in Saccharomyces.All the species studied showed the inhibitionudof growth in facing colony edges, but only three species showed edge irregularities associated with substrate exhaustion. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.