On the Use of Distance Maps in the Analysis of 1D DNA Gel Images

DNA gels analysis plays an important role in genetic of populations and genetic disorders diagnosis studies. The main purpose of this procedure is to determine the size(measured in base pairs) of every DNA fragment present in the gel. This paper describes a procedure, based on digital image processing techniques, that leads to lanes segmentation and bands detection on the digital image, with help of procedures such as autocorrelation and distance maps estimation. It is a completely new approach to DNA electrophoresis gels analysis; the algorithm is more robust and precise than previous works developed until now, and also offers the same (and sometimes better) performance offered by some commercial software evaluated.