MicroVi: A Cost-Effective Microscopy Solution for Yeast Cell Detection and Count in Wine Value Chain

Abstract

In recent years, the wine industry has been researching how to improve wine quality along the production value chain. In this scenario, we present here a new tool, MicroVi, a cost-effective chip-sized microscopy solution to detect and count yeast cells in wine samples. We demonstrate that this novel microscopy setup is able to measure the same type of samples as an optical microscopy system, but with smaller size equipment and with automated cell count configuration. The technology relies on the top of state-of-the-art computer vision pipelines to post-process the images and count the cells. A typical pipeline consists of normalization, feature extraction (i.e., SIFT), image composition (to increase both resolution and scanning area), holographic reconstruction and particle count (i.e., Hough transform). MicroVi achieved a 2.19 µm resolution by properly resolving the G7.6 features from the USAF Resolving Power Test Target 1951. Additionally, we aimed for a successful calibration of cell counts for Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We compared our direct results with our current optical setup, achieving a linear calibration for measurements ranging from 0.5 to 50 million cells per milliliter. Furthermore, other yeast cells were qualitatively resolved with our MicroVi microscope, such as, Brettanomyces bruxellensis, or bacteria, like, Lactobacillus plantarum, thus confirming the system’s reliability for consistent microbial assessment.