Mico S plit: semantic unmixing of fluorescent microscopy data

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Nat Methods. 2026 May 05;. doi: 10.1038/s41592-026-03082-1

Mico S plit: semantic unmixing of fluorescent microscopy data Feliciano Lab

Ashesh A, Carrara F, Zubarev I, Galinova V, Croft M, Pezzotti M, Gong D, Casagrande F, Colombo E, Giussani S, Restelli E, Cammarota E, Battagliotti JM, Klena N, Di Sante M, Adhikari R, Feliciano D, Pigino G, Taverna E, Harschnitz O, Maghelli N, Scherer N, Nogare DE, Deschamps J, Pasqualini F, Jug F

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Abstract

Fluorescence microscopy is constrained by optical limits, fluorophore chemistry and finite photon budgets, imposing trade-offs between imaging speed, resolution and phototoxicity. Here we introduce MicroSplit, a deep learning-based computational multiplexing method that enables multiple cellular structures to be imaged simultaneously in a single fluorescent channel and then computationally unmixed. We show that MicroSplit separates up to four superimposed noisy structures into distinct, denoised image channels, enabling faster and more photon-efficient imaging. Built on Variational Splitting Encoder-Decoder networks, MicroSplit models a posterior distribution over solutions, allowing uncertainty-aware predictions and the estimation of spatially resolved prediction errors from posterior variability. We demonstrate robust performance across diverse datasets, noise levels and imaging conditions, and show that MicroSplit improves downstream analysis while reducing photon exposure. All methods, data and trained models are released as open resources, enabling immediate adoption of computational multiplexing in biological imaging.

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Mico S plit: semantic unmixing of fluorescent microscopy data

Abstract

PMID: 42086917 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]