Acta Stereologica Acta Stereologica -  Volume 4 (1985)  Number 2 - Proceedings of the fourth European symposium for stereology - Dec. 1985 

Automated karyometry of hepatocytes during experimental liver carcinogenesis in normally - fed and protein - deficient rats

Fatima Zora El Kebir
Institut de Biologie, Université d'Oran, Es Senia, Oran, Algeria
Marie-Thérèse Chalumeau
Laboratoire de Biologie du Développement, U.E.R. Biomédicale, 74 rue Marcel Cachin, 93012-Bobigny-Cédex, France
Jean Paul Rigaut
Unité de Recherches Biomathématiques et Biostatistiques (U.263 -INSERM), Université Paris 7, 2 Place Jussieu, 75251-Paris Cédex 05, France

Abstract

Karyometric results, with stereological sphere unfoldings, from rat liver hepatocytic nuclei, have been obtained after an experimental carcinogenesis (Farber) protocol. The rats were protein deficient, or 20% protein fed. A special image analysis algorithm for the IBAS (Kontron) has been used. The non-parametric unfolding method uses profile area classes. Some difficulties were encountered in the interpretation of the karyometric results. The positioning of the diploid and tetraploid peaks changes in normal animals with age. Some guesses can nevertheless be made at ploidy values. Larger nuclei are observed at 4 months after the onset of the protocol in protein-deficient treated animals. At 5 and 7 months, practically only diploid-sized nuclei are found in treated animals. The results are consistent with a possible early polyploidization during oncogenesis, followed by a re-diploidization. The difficulties in interpreting some histograms show that more studies should be done, and notably comparisons with DNA histograms on smears or by cytoflow.

Keywords : experimental cancer, image analysis, karyometry, liver, protein deficiency, sphere unfolding

To cite this article

Fatima Zora El Kebir, Marie-Thérèse Chalumeau & Jean Paul Rigaut, «Automated karyometry of hepatocytes during experimental liver carcinogenesis in normally - fed and protein - deficient rats», Acta Stereologica [En ligne], Volume 4 (1985), Number 2 - Proceedings of the fourth European symposium for stereology - Dec. 1985, 225-229 URL : https://popups.ulg.ac.be/0351-580x/index.php?id=3242.