High throughput measurement of Arabidopsis thaliana fitness traits using transfer learning

Abstract

O_LIRevealing the contributions of genes to plant phenotype is frequently challenging because the effects of loss of gene function may be subtle or be masked by genetic redundancy. Such effects can potentially be detected by measuring plant fitness, which reflects the cumulative effects of genetic changes over the lifetime of a plant. However, fitness is challenging to measure accurately, particularly in species with high fecundity and relatively small propagule sizes such as Arabidopsis thaliana. C_LIO_LIAn image segmentation-based (ImageJ) and a Faster Region Based Convolutional Neural Network (R-CNN) approach were used for measuring two Arabidopsis fitness traits: seed and fruit counts. C_LIO_LIAlthough straightforward to use, ImageJ was error-prone (correlation between true and predicted seed counts, r2=0.849) because seeds touching each other were undercounted. In contrast, Faster R-CNN yielded near perfect seed counts (r2=0.9996) and highly accurate fruit counts (r2=0.980). C_LIO_LIBy examining seed counts, we were able to reveal fitness effects for genes that were previously reported to have no or condition-specific loss-of-function phenotypes. C_LIO_LIOur study provides models to facilitate the investigation of Arabidopsis fitness traits and demonstrates the importance of examining fitness traits in the study of gene functions. C_LI