Characterization of Dynamically Restructuring Soft Materials with High Throughput Microscopy Techniques

We have developed the software platform, BARCODE (Biomaterial Activity Readouts to Categorize, Optimize, Design and Engineer), for high-throughput screening and categorization of active biomaterials. Using readily available and easy-to-implement image processing techniques including image binarization, optical flow, and image intensity distribution analysis, BARCODE reduces the dimensionality of large video files, producing a set of numerical data structures for further processing, and outputting a single data structure containing over a dozen metrics quantifying the structural and dynamic properties of the material. Here, we demonstrate the utility of BARCODE for optimization of active cytoskeletal composites (ACCs), dynamic composites of biopolymers, crosslinkers, and motor proteins that exhibit emergent dynamical properties. Like with many other biological active matter systems, microscopy data of ACCs are often noisy and heterogeneous, which makes their analysis challenging and slows development of new materials. We validate BARCODE outputs against high-resolution processing methods, and demonstrate that BARCODE provides new insight into the dynamic performance of ACCs.Moreover, by narrowing the phase space of possible materials, BARCODE accelerates the design of new active biomaterials.