{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,21]],"date-time":"2026-01-21T21:59:59Z","timestamp":1769032799492,"version":"3.49.0"},"update-to":[{"DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pntd.0013865","type":"new_version","label":"New version","source":"publisher","updated":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,20]],"date-time":"2026-01-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1768867200000}}],"reference-count":29,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,9]],"date-time":"2026-01-09T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1767916800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"\u201cPioneer\u201d and \u201cLeading Goose\" R&D Program of Zhejiang","award":["2024SSYS0007"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2024SSYS0007"]}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100012166","name":"National Key Research and Development Program of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["2021YFC2300800, 2021YFC2300803"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2021YFC2300800, 2021YFC2300803"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100012166","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosntds.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS Negl Trop Dis"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Schistosomiasis, a neglected tropical disease affecting millions globally, urgently requires new therapies. Current treatments, like praziquantel (PZQ), face challenges such as drug resistance and ineffectiveness against juvenile parasites. This study develops an automated, high-throughput computational platform to quantify schistosome viability from video data. We introduced an end-to-end system that leverages foundation models in computer vision and fine-tuning to assess schistosome viability from videos. By fine-tuning advanced image segmentation and spatiotemporal feature representation models, our approach accurately captures both morphological and motility-related features of schistosome and maps them to worm viability directly. As a proof of concept, we constructed two datasets (a PZQ-treatment video dataset with 325 videos and a multi-compound treatment video dataset with 245 videos), designed three worm viability assessment tasks and performed extensive evaluation on them. In addition, we developed a schistosome viability scoring tool, which can be accessed online. The system achieved superior predictive accuracy in PZQ-treated worms, with a Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) of 0.937 for concentration regression, outperforming approaches like hand-crafted feature methods and wrmXpress. A novel 24-hour equivalent PZQ concentration metric was introduced, addressing saturation effects and showing strong generalizability across 13 other compounds (PCC\u2009=\u20090.712). Direct viability score predictions correlated highly with expert assessments, with PCCs of 0.892 for multi-worm analyses and 0.831 for individual worms. We developed a scalable, automated platform for anti-schistosomal drug discovery, providing reliable viability assessments. An accessible online tool enables efficient screening and has broader implications for parasitological research.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pntd.0013865","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,9]],"date-time":"2026-01-09T18:40:32Z","timestamp":1767984032000},"page":"e0013865","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pntd.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["An automated end-to-end system for schistosome viability assessment to accelerate anti-schistosomal drug discovery"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"20","author":[{"given":"Ping","family":"Liu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Wenjun","family":"Cheng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yuepeng","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Bijue","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xiao","family":"Zhu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Guangyong","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jipeng","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0009-1764-7111","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Bian","family":"Wu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,9]]},"reference":[{"issue":"2","key":"pntd.0013865.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1016\/S1473-3099(16)30475-3","article-title":"Human schistosomiasis in the post mass drug administration era","volume":"17","author":"F Mutapi","year":"2017","journal-title":"Lancet Infect Dis"},{"issue":"5","key":"pntd.0013865.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1046","DOI":"10.1021\/acsinfecdis.3c00081","article-title":"Perspective on schistosomiasis drug discovery: highlights from a schistosomiasis drug discovery workshop at Wellcome Collection, London, September 2022","volume":"9","author":"N Caldwell","year":"2023","journal-title":"ACS Infect Dis"},{"issue":"1","key":"pntd.0013865.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"747","DOI":"10.1038\/s42003-020-01402-5","article-title":"A multi-dimensional, time-lapse, high content screening platform applied to schistosomiasis drug discovery","volume":"3","author":"S Chen","year":"2020","journal-title":"Commun Biol"},{"key":"pntd.0013865.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"107937","DOI":"10.1016\/j.biotechadv.2022.107937","article-title":"Whole-organism phenotypic screening methods used in early-phase anthelmintic drug discovery","volume":"57","author":"HMPD Herath","year":"2022","journal-title":"Biotechnol Adv"},{"issue":"7","key":"pntd.0013865.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"616","DOI":"10.3390\/ph14070616","article-title":"High-throughput phenotypic assay to screen for anthelmintic activity on haemonchus contortus","volume":"14","author":"AC Taki","year":"2021","journal-title":"Pharmaceuticals (Basel)"},{"issue":"11","key":"pntd.0013865.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pntd.0010937","article-title":"wrmXpress: a modular package for high-throughput image analysis of parasitic and free-living worms","volume":"16","author":"NJ Wheeler","year":"2022","journal-title":"PLoS Negl Trop Dis"},{"issue":"2","key":"pntd.0013865.ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"461","DOI":"10.1038\/s41596-018-0101-y","article-title":"Life cycle maintenance and drug-sensitivity assays for early drug discovery in Schistosoma mansoni","volume":"14","author":"FC Lombardo","year":"2019","journal-title":"Nat Protoc"},{"issue":"2","key":"pntd.0013865.ref008","article-title":"Phenotypic profiling of macrocyclic lactones on parasitic schistosoma flatworms","volume":"67","author":"KT Ryan","year":"2023","journal-title":"Antimicrob Agents Chemother"},{"key":"pntd.0013865.ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Singh R, Pittas M, Heskia I, Xu F, McKerrow J, Caffrey CR. Automated image-based phenotypic screening for high-throughput drug discovery. In: 2009 22nd IEEE International symposium on computer-based medical systems, 2009. 1\u20138. doi: 10.1109\/cbms.2009.5255338","DOI":"10.1109\/CBMS.2009.5255338"},{"issue":"7553","key":"pntd.0013865.ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"436","DOI":"10.1038\/nature14539","article-title":"Deep learning","volume":"521","author":"Y LeCun","year":"2015","journal-title":"Nature"},{"issue":"12","key":"pntd.0013865.ref011","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2894","DOI":"10.3390\/biomedicines12122894","article-title":"Development and application of an in vitro drug screening assay for schistosoma mansoni schistosomula using YOLOv5","volume":"12","author":"MA Villamizar-Monsalve","year":"2024","journal-title":"Biomedicines"},{"key":"pntd.0013865.ref012","author":"R Bommasani","year":"2021"},{"key":"pntd.0013865.ref013","author":"A Kirillov","year":"2023"},{"key":"pntd.0013865.ref014","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"179","DOI":"10.2307\/3280632","article-title":"Cultivation of Schistosoma mansoni in vitro. I. Establishment of cultures from cercariae and development until pairing","author":"PF Basch","year":"1981","journal-title":"J Parasitol"},{"issue":"5","key":"pntd.0013865.ref015","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pbio.3000254","article-title":"Systematically improved in vitro culture conditions reveal new insights into the reproductive biology of the human parasite Schistosoma mansoni","volume":"17","author":"J Wang","year":"2019","journal-title":"PLoS Biol"},{"issue":"7","key":"pntd.0013865.ref016","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0158429","article-title":"Sexual preferences in nutrient utilization regulate oxygen consumption and reactive oxygen species generation in schistosoma mansoni: potential implications for parasite redox biology","volume":"11","author":"MP Oliveira","year":"2016","journal-title":"PLoS One"},{"key":"pntd.0013865.ref017","author":"Y Cheng","year":"2023"},{"key":"pntd.0013865.ref018","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ghiasi G, Cui Y, Srinivas A, Qian R, Lin TY, Cubuk ED, et al. Simple copy-paste is a strong data augmentation method for instance segmentation. In: Proceedings of the IEEE\/CVF conference on computer vision and pattern recognition, 2021. 2918\u201328.","DOI":"10.1109\/CVPR46437.2021.00294"},{"key":"pntd.0013865.ref019","first-page":"10078","article-title":"VideoMAE: masked autoencoders are data-efficient learners for self-supervised video pre-training","volume":"35","author":"Z Tong","year":"2022","journal-title":"Adv Neural Inf Process Syst"},{"key":"pntd.0013865.ref020","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Selvaraju RR, Cogswell M, Das A, Vedantam R, Parikh D, Batra D. Grad-cam: Visual explanations from deep networks via gradient-based localization. In: Proceedings of the IEEE International conference on computer vision, 2017. 618\u201326.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICCV.2017.74"},{"key":"pntd.0013865.ref021","author":"S Liu","year":"2023"},{"issue":"9","key":"pntd.0013865.ref022","first-page":"2859","article-title":"Decoupling features in hierarchical propagation for video object segmentation","volume":"43","author":"S Xie","year":"2021","journal-title":"IEEE Transac Pattern Anal Machine Intelligen"},{"issue":"6","key":"pntd.0013865.ref023","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1137","DOI":"10.1109\/TPAMI.2016.2577031","article-title":"Faster R-CNN: towards real-time object detection with region proposal networks","volume":"39","author":"S Ren","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Trans Pattern Anal Mach Intell"},{"key":"pntd.0013865.ref024","year":"2024"},{"key":"pntd.0013865.ref025","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Schroff F, Kalenichenko D, Philbin J. FaceNet: a unified embedding for face recognition and clustering. In: Proceedings of the IEEE conference on computer vision and pattern recognition (CVPR), 2015. 815\u201323.","DOI":"10.1109\/CVPR.2015.7298682"},{"key":"pntd.0013865.ref026","unstructured":"Liu J, Yamada I. Margin ranking loss for person re-identification. In: Proceedings of the IEEE conference on computer vision and pattern recognition (CVPR). 1858\u201366."},{"key":"pntd.0013865.ref027","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2372","DOI":"10.1016\/j.csbj.2022.05.014","article-title":"Image recognition based on deep learning in Haemonchus contortus motility assays","volume":"20","author":"M \u017dofka","year":"2022","journal-title":"Comput Struct Biotechnol J"},{"key":"pntd.0013865.ref028","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"362","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-540-74198-5_28","article-title":"Discrete skeleton evolution.","volume-title":"Energy minimization methods in computer vision and pattern recognition: 6th International conference, EMMCVPR 2007, Ezhou, China, August 27-29, 2007. Proceedings 6","author":"X Bai","year":"2007"},{"issue":"3","key":"pntd.0013865.ref029","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pntd.0009200","article-title":"Schistosoma mansoni alter transcription of immunomodulatory gene products following in vivo praziquantel exposure","volume":"15","author":"P McCusker","year":"2021","journal-title":"PLoS Negl Trop Dis"}],"updated-by":[{"DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pntd.0013865","type":"new_version","label":"New version","source":"publisher","updated":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,20]],"date-time":"2026-01-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1768867200000}}],"container-title":["PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pntd.0013865","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,20]],"date-time":"2026-01-20T18:56:46Z","timestamp":1768935406000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pntd.0013865"}},"subtitle":[],"editor":[{"given":"Krystyna","family":"Cwiklinski","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"editor","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,9]]},"references-count":29,"journal-issue":{"issue":"1","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,9]]}},"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pntd.0013865","relation":{},"ISSN":["1935-2735"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1935-2735","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,9]]}}}