Morphometric evaluation of the volume of the spherical and nonspherical cell nuclei in semithin plastic embedded sections

RESUMO

The objective of present paper was to describe a method for the evaluation of the volume of nonspherical nuclei in 0.5 um thick araldite embedded sections, and to compare with the metods applied for the determination of volume od spherical nuclei in the same sections. Terminal tubule and acinar cell nuclei of submandibular glands from 15-day old rats, were studied. Radii of approximately spherical terminal tubule cell nuclei, were measured in 0.5 um semithin sections and the mean nuclear radius was estimated using BachÆmethod. The mean nuclear volume was calculated by the geometric formula for the volume of the sphere. For comparison, the nuclear volume of the same cells, was also evaluated by an indirect method, through estimation of the number of nuclei per unit glandular volume and, the uncorrected and corrected cell nuclear volume densities in the gland. The volume of nonspherical acinar cell nuclei was evaluated solely byy the indirect method; the value thus obtained was also corrected