Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis is the preferred method for simultaneously separating and visualising thousands of proteins. An important part of the computer aided analysis of the proteome is the ability to automatically detect, identify, and quantify the proteins by means of automatic Image processing. We present a fast and sensitive method for protein spot detection using the Circular Symmetry Tensor. It is based upon the work of Bigun on Symmetry derivatives of Gaussians.

We have implemented an algorithm for detection and segmentation of protein spots in 2-D gel electrophoresis images using symmetry derivative features computed using low level image processing operations. The implementation was compared with a previously published Watershed segmentation and a commercial software. Our algorithm was found to yield segmentation results that were either better than or comparable to the other solutions while having fewer free parameters and a low computational cost. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.