Investigating quantitative histological characteristics in renal pathology using HistoLens

Abstract HistoLens is an open-source graphical user interface developed using MATLAB AppDesigner for visual and quantitative analysis of histological datasets. HistoLens enables users to interrogate sets of digitally annotated whole slide images to efficiently characterize histological differences between disease and experimental groups. Users can dynamically visualize the distribution of 448 hand-engineered features quantifying color, texture, morphology, and distribution across microanatomic sub-compartments. Additionally, users can map differentially detected image features within the images by highlighting affected regions. We demonstrate the utility of HistoLens to identify hand-engineered features that correlate with pathognomonic renal glomerular characteristics distinguishing diabetic nephropathy and amyloid nephropathy from the histologically unremarkable glomeruli in minimal change disease. Additionally, we examine the use of HistoLens for glomerular feature discovery in the Tg26 mouse model of HIV-associated nephropathy. We identify numerous quantitative glomerular features distinguishing Tg26 transgenic mice from wild-type mice, corresponding to a progressive renal disease phenotype. Thus, we demonstrate an off-the-shelf and ready-to-use toolkit for quantitative renal pathology applications.