PIQUE: An ImageJ plugin for the quantification of toroidal nuclei in biological images

The toroidal nucleus is a novel chromosomal instability (CIN) biomarker which complements the micronucleus. Understanding the specific biological stresses leading to the formation of each CIN-associated phenotype requires the evaluation of large panels of biological images collected from different genetic backgrounds and environmental conditions. However, the quantification of toroidal nuclei is currently a manual process which is unviable on a large scale. Here, we present PIQUE (Processing of Images for the QUantification of toroidal nuclEi), a tool that automates the identification of toroidal nuclei, minimizing false positives while highly agreeing with the manual quantifications. Additionally, PIQUE identifies micronuclei for a convenient comparison of both CIN biomarkers. PIQUE is an open-source ImageJ plugin with a user-friendly interface that enables a wide scientific community to easily study the novel toroidal nucleus for the analysis of CIN levels in cellular models. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.