細胞学および組織学ジャーナル

The treatment of Parkinson’s disease with l-dopa and a decarboxylase inhibitor, with dopamine agonists or with NMDA antagonists can cause psychotic symptoms. Neural networks are described in the mesolimbic system in order to explain this adverse effect. The psychotic symptoms are treated with second-generation antipsychotic drugs which do not worsen movement disturbances. Among these drugs, the administration of clozapine and quetiapine is recommended to treat psychotic symptoms in Parkinson’s disease.

Members of the formin family of actin filament nucleation factors have been implicated in sarcomere formation, but precisely how these proteins affect sarcomere structure remains poorly understood. Of six formins in the simple nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, only FHOD-1 and CYK-1 contribute to sarcomere assembly in the worm's obliquely striated body-wall muscles. We analyze here the ultrastructure of body-wall muscle sarcomeres in worms with putative null FHOD-1 and CYK-1 gene mutations. Contrary to a simple model that formins nucleate actin for thin filament assembly, formin mutant sarcomeres contain thin filaments. Rather, formin mutant sarcomeres are narrower and have deformed thin filament-anchoring Z-line structures. Thus, formins affect multiple aspects of sarcomere structure.

Mesonephric carcinomas of the female genital tract are rare tumors, mainly occurring in the cervix and exceptionally in the uterine corpus. There seems to be a paradigm that the only mesonephric neoplasms arising from the upper zone of the Wolffian system are FATWOs. Indeed, no cases of mesonephric carcinoma of the ovary have been reported in the recent literature. Herein, we describe two cases of ovarian carcinoma with histologic features consistent with mesonephric adenocarcinoma. In both cases, the initial diagnosis of well-differentiated endometrioid adenocarcinoma was withdrawn because of other coexistent growth patterns, and the presence of admixed mesonephric-type structures. The mesonephric identity of the tumors was supported immunohistochemically, in particular by their uniform negativity for ER and PR, and strong reactivity for CD10.

Objective: This study was conducted to investigate the possible hepatoprotective role of Moringa oleifera leaves extract known by its phenolic antioxidant components against acute hepatic injury induced by different doses of Diclofenac sodium (DIC) in albino rats.
Materials and methods: Ninety male albino rats of 200-250 gm were sorted into 9 groups each with 10 rats: group1serves as control received orally normal saline, group 2 received a dose of 8 mg/kg DIC orally for 15 days, groups 4, 6, 8 received (50, 100, 150 mg/kg) DIC orally for 3 days, groups 3,5,7,9 received orally Moringa oleifera leaves extract (500 mg/kg) before the different DIC doses. At the end of the experiments, blood was collected for assessment of liver functions, pieces from right lobe of the liver were sectioned and stained for light and ultrastructural studies.
Results: Biochemical results showed significant alteration in liver functions tests which coincide with severity of hepatocellular damage indicating acute hepatotoxicity. Histopathological changes include: dilatation and congestion of central veins and blood sinusoids. Apoptotic cells, mononuclear cells infiltration, periportal fibrous tissue deposition and focal areas of fatty degeneration (microvesicular steatosis) were observed. Ultrastructurally, there were degenerated cytoplasmic organelles (rER and mitochondria), prominent Von Kupffer cells and Ito cells. Such hepatotoxicity showed strong improvement when Moringa oleifera extract was administrated with DIC.
Conclusion: The present study proved that acute hepatocellular damage induced by DIC was dose dependent which looked to be trigerred by mitochondrial dysfunction, and it was potentially improved by the administration of Moringa oleifera leaves extract.

Introduction: Morphological differentiation between reactive mesothelial proliferation and metastatic carcinoma cells may be extremely difficult in conventional centrifuge deposit smears stained with papanicolaou and romanowsky dyes. In the present study immunocytochemistry and morphometric analysis were performed on cytospin preparation of effusion categorized as atypical/suspicious on toluidine blue stained wet films.
Materials and methods: A total of 100 cases comprising 26 benign (control group) and 74 malignant (study group) effusions were included in the study. Samples showing atypical /suspicious cells on preliminary conventional centrifuged wet film stained with toluidine blue; 63 were aspirated from pleural, 36 from peritoneal and 1 from pericardial effusions. These samples were processed for 6 cytospin preparations, 1 air dried stained with giemsa and others fixed in ethanol stained with papnicolaou stain, Cytokeratin 8/18, Epithelial Membrane Antigen (EMA) and Calretinin. Morphometric analysis was performed using software Image Pro Plus Version 6.3 on a minimum of 20 positive and negative stained cells on IHC stained smears.
Results: The sensitivity and specificity of CK 8/18 in diagnosing benign, atypical and malignant cases were 91.89% and 89.5% respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of EMA was 90.5% and 86.6% respectively. Calretinin had 97% sensitivity for mesothelial cells. The 3 negative cases did not express CK 8/18 and EMA also. Thus, Calretinin can be accepted as a technique control to decide that immunocytochemical staining is working in a given case because mesothelial cells are generally present in benign as well as malignant effusions as native exfoliated cells. Nuclear area, cytoplasmic area and N:C ratio of mesothelial cells in benign effusions were 56.2 ± 2.03 um2, 182.41 ± 4.61 um2 and 0.31 ± 0.01 um2 and in malignant effusions were 63.15 ± 2.44 um2, 185.67 ± 2.15 um2 and 0.34 ± 0.01 um2 respectively. Using ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic) curve nuclear area 88.30 μm2 area [sensitivity (98.6%) and specificity (94%)] cytoplasmic area 200.55 μm2 area [sensitivity (100%) and specificity (90%)] and N:C ratio 0.345 [sensitivity (93%) and specificity (94%)] considered as cut off values. So, we can use this value to discriminate between reactive mesothelial proliferations from malignant cells.
Conclusion: IHC can be easily performed on cytospin preparation without requiring antigen retrieval and is extremely useful in differentiating metastasis from reactive mesothelial proliferation. The results of morphometric analysis were useful adjunct.

Background: Malignant gliomas are heterogeneous, diffuse and invasive by nature. Histopathological identification of glioma tumor cells is mandatory to characterize the tumors and the extent of infiltration in the surrounding normal parenchyma.
Methods: In order to identify specific markers for tumor cells not expressed in non-neoplastic brain tissues, we used a well-annotated tissue microarray (TMA) containing 45 samples from patients that suffered from several subtypes of low grade and high grade gliomas (pilocytic astrocytoma, oligoastrocytoma, low grade astrocytoma, anaplastic astrocytoma, primary and secondary glioblastomas), non-glial tumors (medulloblastoma and metastasis) as well as fetal, epileptic, and gliotic specimens used as non-tumoral control tissues. The TMA was assessed for 24 proteins involved in tumor proliferation, migration, invasion, and differentiation, or acting as transcription factors and metabolic enzymes.
Results: This immunohistological analysis revealed that nestin and secreted protein, acidic and rich in cysteine (SPARC) are expressed in tumor cells in all glioma subtypes and developmental tissues but rarely in mature epileptic tissue. In addition to these two markers, the expression of mutated isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1(R132H)) also identified tumor cells but only in some subtypes of gliomas.
Conclusions: Taken together, our data suggest that the combination of nestin and SPARC expression characterizes tumor glioma cells. These proteins may represent relevant glioma immunohistological markers that might be molecular targets in glioma therapy.

We previously observed that radial glial(RG)-like cells showed larger soma, thicker and longer neuritis in vivo(i.e., in rats) after fimbria-fornix (FF) transection, and in vitro RG-like cells showed the same results after the application of the extract from FF-transected hippocampus. In the present study, RG-like cells cultured in 24-well plates supplemented with 5% extract from FF-transected hippocampus were more likely to differentiate into neurons, compared with a normal group. After receiving the insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2) gene and knockdown or over expression viruses, the influence of IGF2 on the differentiation of RG-like cells into neurons and the expression of IGF2 were measured. Then, real-time polymerase chain reaction (real-time PCR), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and immunofluorescence were used to detect the differentiation of the RG-like cells into neurons. ELISA and real-time PCR showed that the expression of IGF2 in the IGF2 over expression (IGF2 OE) group was significantly higher compared to the normal group. However, the expression of IGF2 in the FF+IGF2 knockdown (FF+IGF2 KD) group was significantly lower than in the FF group. Moreover, the number of MAP2-positive neurons produced in the FF+IGF2 KD group, which expressed less IGF2, was significantly lower compared with the FF group, but the number of MAP2-positive neurons was significantly higher in the IGF2 OE group. The differentiation of RG-like cells into neurons was correlated with a significant increase in the expression of IGF2, indicating that IGF2 was an important regulatory factor for the extract to stimulate the differentiation of RG-like cells into neurons.

The aim of this study was to describe de fiber composition in the thigh muscles of grass cutter (Thryonomys swinderianus, Temminck 1827). Ten 4 to 6-month-old (3 to 4 kg) male grasscutter were used in this study. Eleven skeletal muscles of the thigh [M. biceps femoris (BF), M. rectus femoris (RF), M. vastus lateralis (VL), M. vastus medialis (VM), M. tensor fasciae latae (TFL), M. semitendinosus (ST), M. semimembranosus (SM), M. semimembranosus accessorius (SMA), M. Sartorius (SRT), M. pectineus (PCT), M. adductor magnus (AM)] were collected after animals euthanasia and examined by light microscopy. Three muscle fiber types (I, IIB and IIA) were found in these muscles using enzyme histochemical techniques [myosine adenosine triphosphatase (ATPase) and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide tetrazolium reductase (NADH-TR)]. Ten of these eleven muscles are composed by 89% to 100% of fast contracting fibers (types IIA and IIB), while the SMA was almost exclusively formed by slow contracting fibers.

Acid-sensing ion channel 2 (ASIC2) works as a proton-gated ion channel. Our previous report showed that ASIC2 was expressed in ciliated and stereociliated cells. In the central nervous system, ASIC2 was detected in neurons. However, ciliated ependymal cells also expressed ASIC2. In addition to ependymal cells in the cerebral ventricle, epithelial cells of the choroid plexus expressed ASIC2. We clarified that ASIC2 localized at the cilia membrane in ciliated ependymal cells and at the epithelial cell body in the choroid plexus, irrespective of ciliation. The role of ASIC2 in the ependymal cells remains to be clarified.

Apoptosis is a cellular phenomenon of great importance in the cellular homeostasis of tissues and organs. For many years diverse techniques have been developed for the identification and differentiation of normal and apoptotic cells, but only in cells isolated in cultures as in histology sections. These techniques are based on the modifications that cells suffer during the process of apoptosis. One of these changes is linked with modifications of glycoconjugates in the glycocalix of cells, which allows the use of lectins for identification of these apoptotic cells. In this review, we first present the data obtained to date with this approach for the detection of apoptotic cells with lectins, both using flow cytometry and, especially, cytochemical methods. Secondly we comment on the results obtained in the detection of apoptotic cells with classical lectin histochemistry using histological sections of the seminiferous epithelium. These results open the possibility of using lectins in normal and pathological organs as a tool to identify “in situ” apoptotic cells both in the initial and late phases of apoptosis although further studies are needed in other organs to determine their usefulness and effectiveness over others identification techniques of “in situ” apoptosis.

Objective: The aims of this study were to investigate the usefulness of color evaluation of the nuclear region using visible-microscopic spectroscopy (Vis-MS) and to clarify whether it can serve as an index to distinguish cancer cells in liquid-based cytology (LBC). Vis-MS is a spectral analysis technique widely used for absorption and fluorometric analyses in the analytical chemistry field. Vis-MS has been applied to histological diagnosis, but only a few studies on its application to cytology have been performed, and no investigations have been performed for LBC, which is expected to become widely used in Japan.
Study design: Using culture cell lines of non-cancer cells and cancer cells, transmittance at 530 nm (maximum absorption wavelength of eosin), 580 nm (hematoxylin), and 630 nm (light green), and 530 nm/580 nm and 630 nm/580 nm transmittance ratios were analyzed.
Results: Two variances of the transmittance at 580 nm and 630 nm/580 nm transmittance ratio were finally extracted as effective items after applying forward and backward variance selection and investigation of multicollinearity. The odds ratios of 580 nm transmittance and 630 nm/580 nm transmittance ratio were 0.48 and 0.72, respectively. The cancer cell discrimination predictive value determined using the logistic regression equation was 98.0%, being favorable.
Conclusion: It was suggested that Vis-MS is useful to evaluate the color of the nuclear region and serves as a cancer cell discrimination index for LBC. We are planning to apply Vis-MS to clinical materials and develop nuclear color evaluation using Vis-MS into an objective index for cases in which cancer cell judgment is difficult.

Normal fetal growth and survival depends on proper development and function of the placenta. The diabetic pregnancy is characterized by numerous disturbances in fetal growth and development. This study was done to focus on the effects of gestational diabetes on the histology of the placenta to confirm the magnitude of damage caused by diabetes to human placenta. Twenty Placentas of full term pregnancy were collected from Alzawia hospital, Libya. We used histological, histochemical and CD34 imuno-histochemical stains in this study. In diabetic pregnancy, placental weight is higher in comparison to normal pregnancy. Chorionic villi showed increased number of fetal capillaries, stromal villous fibrosis, villous edema, thickness of basement membrane of syncytiotrophoblast, glycogen deposits and strong positive reaction for CD34 in the wall of blood vessels in stem villus.