Fast and flexible processing of large FRET image stacks using the FRET-IBRA toolkit

Ratiometric time-lapse FRET analysis requires a robust and accurate processing pipeline to eliminate bias in intensity measurements on fluorescent images before further quantitative analysis can be conducted. This level of robustness can only be achieved by supplementing automated tools with built-in flexibility for manual ad-hoc adjustments. FRET-IBRA is a modular and fully parallelized configuration file-based tool written in Python. It simplifies the FRET processing pipeline to achieve accurate, registered, and unified ratio image stacks. The flexibility of this tool to handle discontinuous image frame sequences with tailored configuration parameters further streamlines the processing of outliers and time-varying effects in the original microscopy images. FRET-IBRA offers cluster-based channel background subtraction, photobleaching correction, and ratio image construction in an all-in-one solution without the need for multiple applications, image format conversions, and/or plug-ins. The package accepts a variety of input formats and outputs TIFF image stacks along with performance measures to detect both the quality and failure of the background subtraction algorithm on a per frame basis. Furthermore, FRET-IBRA outputs images with superior signal-to-noise ratio and accuracy in comparison to existing background subtraction solutions, whilst maintaining a fast runtime. We have used the FRET-IBRA package extensively to quantify the spatial distribution of calcium ions during pollen tube growth under mechanical constraints. Benchmarks against existing tools clearly demonstrate the need for FRET-IBRA in extracting reliable insights from FRET microscopy images of dynamic physiological processes at high spatial and temporal resolution. The source code for Linux and Mac operating systems is released under the BSD license and, along with installation instructions, test images, example configuration files, and a step-by-step tutorial, is freely available at github.com/gmunglani/fret-ibra.Author summary: FRET is a fundamental imaging technique used to generate fluorescence signals sensitive to molecular conformations and interactions. Despite its wide use and the large body of literature on the theoretical steps required to process images generated from this procedure, we were unable to locate a tool that contained the entire processing workflow, whilst allowing the user the flexibility to adjust parameters for maximum accuracy and runtime efficiency. FRET-IBRA was thus created to be an all-in-one, open-source, parallel solution to process FRET images, while eliminating complications arising from repeated image format conversions. Besides enhancing the background subtraction algorithm for FRET images, several additional options were implemented for the users to improve the quality of the signal for their specific use case. FRET-IBRA is primarily built for flexibility when handling large image stacks by supporting sequences of image frames to be treated independently, greatly reducing time spent on splitting and concatenating image stacks. In accuracy and speed benchmarks against more general background subtraction packages, FRET-IBRA was able to provide the cleanest results with a fast runtime, leading to reliable analysis without additional tuning.