Nuclear Morphometry in Normal and SV-40 Transformed Human Diploid Fibroblasts

These experiments were designed to compare the densitometric, morphometric, and texture characteristics of intact nuclei from stationary WI-38 human diploid fibroblasts and their stationary SV40-transformed counterparts (2RA cells) by means of automated image analysis and to compare the differences in template activity of the chromatins isolated from the two cell lines. While the frequency distributions of directly measured parameters as area and IOD show a substantial overlap between WI-38 and 2RA cells, average optical density parameter derived as IOD per unit area, yields two distinctly separated distributions, which permit objective identifications of individual SV40 transformed cells. Chromatin of the stationary 2RA cells appears more condensed than that of the confluent WI-38 cells, quite compatible with the decreased template activity of chromatin from transformed cells.