Automated analysis of cellular samples having intermixing of analytically distinct patterns of analyte staining

A system comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and
• a memory having stored thereon instructions that, upon execution by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform one or more actions including:
• accessing an image depicting a biological sample;
• identifying, from the image, a compound-staining image region that includes a plurality of pixels that identify a first staining pattern and a second staining pattern intermixed with one another;
• identifying a candidate biological-compartment region within the compound-staining image region, wherein the candidate biological-compartment region includes a set of the plurality of pixels that identify at least part of a cell;
• selecting a pixel-intensity bin based on a type of the at least part of a cell;
• applying the pixel-intensity bin to the candidate biological-compartment region to identify a subset of the set of pixels, wherein each pixel of the subset of pixels matches a pixel-intensity criteria specified by the pixel-intensity bin;
• and
• determining, based on the subset of pixels, an amount of stain corresponding to the first staining pattern within the compound-staining image region.

A method comprising:

• accessing an image depicting a biological sample;
• identifying, from the image, a compound-staining image region that includes a plurality of pixels that identify a first staining pattern and a second staining pattern intermixed with one another;
• identifying a candidate biological-compartment region within the compound-staining image region, wherein the candidate biological-compartment region includes a set of the plurality of pixels that identify at least part of a cell;
• selecting a pixel-intensity bin based on a type of the at least part of a cell;
• applying the pixel-intensity bin to the candidate biological-compartment region to identify a subset of the set of pixels, wherein each pixel of the subset of pixels matches a pixel-intensity criteria specified by the pixel-intensity bin;
• and
• determining, based on the subset of pixels, an amount of stain corresponding to the first staining pattern within the compound-staining image region.

A computer program product tangibly embodied in a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium, including instructions configured to cause one or more data processors to perform one or more actions including:

• accessing an image depicting a biological sample;
• identifying, from the image, a compound-staining image region that includes a plurality of pixels that identify a first staining pattern and a second staining pattern intermixed with one another;
• identifying a candidate biological-compartment region within the compound-staining image region, wherein the candidate biological-compartment region includes a set of the plurality of pixels that identify at least part of a cell;
• selecting a pixel-intensity bin based on a type of the at least part of a cell;
• applying the pixel-intensity bin to the candidate biological-compartment region to identify a subset of the set of pixels, wherein each pixel of the subset of pixels matches a pixel-intensity criteria specified by the pixel-intensity bin;
• and
• determining, based on the subset of pixels, an amount of stain corresponding to the first staining pattern within the compound-staining image region.