Fig. 5

Human bronchial epithelial cells infected by SARS-CoV-2. A Volume rendering and individual sections of a confocal 3D image of a primary culture of bronchial epithelial cells 4 days after it was infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The dataset (of dimensions 1024 × 1024 × 15 voxels) covers a portion of the epithelium immunostained for the tight junction protein ZO-1. Notice the roughness of the epithelium surface and the presence of anomalous bulges resulting from the SARS-CoV-2 infection. Scale bar 10 μm. B 3D representations of the height map extracted by Zellige (in green) and the GT height map (in blue), of the epithelium surface. C Color-coded error map of the reconstructed height map. Despite its roughness, the surface of interest is reconstructed with subpixel accuracy over the majority (71%) of pixels, as well as on average (RMSE ~ 0.81). D Projections localized to the GT height map of the epithelium surface (leftmost panel), and the height maps extracted with the four different algorithms: FastSME, LocalZProjector, PreMosa, and Zellige. Scale bar 30 μm