BudFinder: A Masked Auto-Encoder vision transformer framework for yeast budding detection and lifespan quantification
Fig 5
Automated division-detection accurately reproduces budding events irrespective of aging mode and daughter cell morphology.
(A) Representative phase-contrast images from the mother-machine device illustrating the two budding patterns observed in wild-type cells. Mode 1 shows elongated daughter cells (left), whereas Mode 2 cells exhibit small round daughter cells (right). Green arrowheads mark daughter cells; white dashed outlines delineate the mother cell boundary. (B) Mean ± SD replicative lifespan for Mode 1 and Mode 2 mothers measured by manual annotation (black bars) versus BudFinder model (grey bars). Model predictions closely match ground truth scores for both modes (two-tailed paired t-test, n.s. for Mode 1 and Mode 2). (C) Cell-cycle length trajectories over the course of life, expressed as a percentage of each cell’s total lifespan. Scatter points represent individual cycles; solid lines are Savitzky–Golay–smoothed trajectories (left, manual ground-truth annotations; right, model predictions). The model recapitulates the rapid budding characteristic of young cells, followed by progressive late-life cell-cycle lengthening, with Mode 2 cycles consistently longer than Mode 1 across both ground-truth and BudFinder model outputs.