High-throughput analysis of TUNEL-stained sperm using image cytometry

Dissecting Drug-Induced Cytotoxicity and Metabolic Dysfunction in Conditionally Immortalized Human Proximal Tubule Cells

Fourteen to 26 percent of all hospitalized cases of acute kidney injury are explained by drug-induced toxicity, emphasizing the importance of proper strategies to pre-clinically assess renal toxicity. The MTT assay is widely used as a measure of cell viability, but largely depends on cellular metabolic activity. Consequently, MTT as a single assay may not be the best way to assess cytotoxicity of compounds that reduce mitochondrial function and cellular metabolic activity without directly affecting cell viability. Accordingly, we aim to highlight the limitations of MTT alone in assessing renal toxicity of compounds that interfere with metabolic activity. Therefore, we compared toxic effects observed by MTT with a fluorescent assay that determines compromised plasma membrane permeability. Exposure of proximal tubule epithelial cells to nephrotoxic compounds reduced cellular metabolic activity concentration- and time-dependently. We show that compared to our fluorescence-based approach, assessment of cellular metabolic activity by means of MTT provides a composite readout of cell death and metabolic impairment. An approach independent of cellular metabolism is thus preferable when assessing cytotoxicity of compounds that induce metabolic dysfunction. Moreover, combining both assays during drug development enables a first discrimination between compounds having a direct or indirect mitochondrial toxic potential.

Silibinin-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (SLB-HP-β-CD) complex prevents apoptosis in liver and kidney after hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury

BACKGROUND

We investigated the protective effect of silibinin on rat liver and kidney after hepatic inschemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury.

METHODS AND MATERIALS

Sixty three male Wistar-type rats (median age 13 weeks; average weight 314 g) were subjected to I/R injury of the liver. They were randomly divided into three groups: Sham (n = 7), Control (C, n = 28) and Silibinin (Si, n = 28). The last group received intravenously silibinin. The C and Si groups were each subdivided in four subgroups according to euthanasia times (i.e., 60, 120, 180, 240 min). We assessed expression of caspase-3 and TUNEL assay, and biochemical and histological parameters.

RESULTS

At 240 min, expression of caspase-3 and TUNEL assay were statistically significantly lower in the Si compared to the C group for both liver and kidney. SGOT and SGPT were also statistically significantly lower in the Si than in the C group at all time points. Histological parameters of the liver were also improved in the Si group.

CONCLUSION

Silibinin was found to exhibit a protective effect on liver and kidney after hepatic I/R injury. The present results are encouraging for further studies and future clinical application.

H-EM: An algorithm for simultaneous cell diameter and intensity quantification in low-resolution imaging cytometry

Fluorescent cytometry refers to the quantification of cell physical properties and surface biomarkers using fluorescently-tagged antibodies. The generally preferred techniques to perform such measurements are flow cytometry, which performs rapid single cell analysis by flowing cells one-by-one through a channel, and microscopy, which eliminates the complexity of the flow channel, offering multi-cell analysis at a lesser throughput. Low-magnification image-based cytometers, also called "cell astronomy" systems, hold promise of simultaneously achieving both instrumental simplicity and high throughput. In this magnification regime, a single cell is mapped to a handful of pixels in the image. While very attractive, this idea has, so far, not been proven to yield quantitative results of cell-labeling, mainly due to the poor signal-to-noise ratio present in those images and to partial volume effects. In this work we present a cell astronomy system that, when coupled with custom-developed algorithms, is able to quantify cell intensities and diameters reliably. We showcase the system using calibrated MESF beads and fluorescently stained leukocytes, achieving good population identification in both cases. The main contribution of the proposed system is in the development of a novel algorithm, H-EM, that enables inter-cluster separation at a very low magnification regime (2x). Such algorithm provides more accurate brightness estimates than DAOSTORM when compared to manual analysis, while fitting cell location, brightness, diameter, and background level concurrently. The algorithm first performs Fisher discriminant analysis to detect bright spots. From each spot an expectation-maximization algorithm is initialized over a heterogeneous mixture model (H-EM), this algorithm recovers both the cell fluorescence and diameter with sub-pixel accuracy while discriminating the background noise. Finally, a recursive splitting procedure is applied to discern individual cells in cell clusters.