JCB logo
CrossRef
  Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF, 708K)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new content in the JCB
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Greengard, O.
Right arrow Articles by Knox, W. E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Greengard, O.
Right arrow Articles by Knox, W. E.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Facebook   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?
The Journal of Cell Biology, Vol 52, 261-272, Copyright © 1972 by Rockefeller University Press

ARTICLE

CYTOMORPHOMETRY OF DEVELOPING RAT LIVER AND ITS APPLICATION TO ENZYMIC DIFFERENTIATION



Olga Greengard 1, Micheline Federman 1, and W. Eugene Knox 1

1 From the Department of Biological Chemistry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, and the Cancer Research Institute, New England Deaconess Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02215

Quantitative stereological methods have been adapted for the measurement of the volume of liver attributable to parenchymal, hematopoietic, and Kupffer cells and for the measurement of the relative and absolute number (per unit volume) of these cell types and the mean volume of the parenchymal cell. These morphological parameters are the main ones for interpreting the biochemical differentiation of liver. Quantitative changes in these parameters, in rat liver between the 15th day of gestation and adult life, are presented. Despite the large number of hematopoietic cells, the parenchymal cells fill more than half of the liver volume between the 15th and 18th days of gestation and 0.85 of the liver volume at term. The fraction of liver volume occupied by Kupffer cells is never more than 0.02; the number of Kupffer cells per cubic centimeter increases less than twofold between fetal and adult life. The mean volume of individual parenchymal cells undergoes a threefold rise during late fetal life, declines in the neonatal period, and doubles between the 12th and 28th postnatal days. With the morphometric data obtained, it is impossible to convert enzyme concentrations (units per gram, determined in homogenates of whole liver) to enzyme amounts per unit volume of parenchymal or hematopoietic tissue or per individual cell of either type. In late fetal liver, only rises in enzyme concentration less than twofold may be attributed to the enrichment of parenchymal tissue at the expense of hematopoietic elements. The sudden upsurge, by more than twofold, of hepatic enzymes of the late fetal cluster (and also of the neonatal and late suckling cluster) reflects rises per parenchymal mass and per parenchymal cell. Thyroxine and glucagon, the administration of which to fetal rats promotes enzyme differentiation in liver, are without appreciable effect on the cytological parameters studied. Hydrocortisone accelerates the involution of hematopoietic tissue in fetal liver. Enzymes that are diminished by prenatal injection of hydrocortisone may be concentrated in hematopoietic cells.

Submitted on July 12, 1971
Revised on August 31, 1971


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Facebook Facebook   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:



  Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents