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Determination of the mean caliper diameter of lung nuclei by a method which is independent of shape assumptions
Author(s) -
Woody Dawn,
Woody Erik,
Crapo James D.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
journal of microscopy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.569
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1365-2818
pISSN - 0022-2720
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2818.1980.tb00291.x
Subject(s) - calipers , ellipsoid , biomedical engineering , anatomy , physics , mathematics , geometry , biology , medicine , astronomy
SUMMARY When determining the number of nuclei (therefore cells) present in a known volume of tissue it is necessary to determine the overall mean caliper diameter of nuclei for each cell type studied. Most previous methods for determining the mean caliper diameters (D̄) of cell nuclei were strongly dependent upon assumptions of the shape of the particles in question (Greeley et al. , 1978). A computer program has now been designed to calculate D̄ from three‐dimensional reconstructions of nuclei in a manner that is independent of all shape assumptions. The D̄s of ten capillary endothelial cell nuclei from normal rat lungs have been determined by this shape‐independent method. The resulting overall mean caliper diameter for this group of ten nuclei varied only slightly from that previously estimated for them by a method which assumes them to be triaxial ellipsoids. In a similar comparison, the D̄s for ten normal human lung endothelial cell nuclei were determined by both methods. The overall mean caliper diameter determined by the shape‐independent method was 10% larger than that estimated by the shape‐dependent method. This suggests that human lung endothelial nuclei vary significantly from the shape assumption (triaxial ellipsoid) employed in the shape‐dependent method, and the shape‐independent method was considered to yield a more accurate measurement of D̄.