Incipient UV-Induced Structural Changes in Neutrophil Granulocytes: Morphometric and Texture Analysis of Two-Dimensional Digital Images

The aim of this study is to determine the ability and consequent significance of fractal and lacunarity analysis together with computational morphometric and gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) analysis in detecting subtle initial UVB-induced chromatin and cytosolic changes in neutrophil granulocytes. In addition, the direction and potential significance of the observed changes is speculated. Feulgen-stained neutrophils are pictured and their digitalized images are analyzed in specialized software for digital image processing and ImageJ analysis. Significant statistical difference is observed (p0.05). For other parameters there was mostly high statistical significance (p>0.05). Significant unmatched correlations were found as sensitive markers of early morphological changes in cells exposed to UV light. In addition, the correlation between nuclear area and entropy was determined and was highly significant (p<0.001). UVB light, due to its high absorbance by DNA molecules, leads to double behavior of the cells. On one hand, cells start to rearrange but on the other UV light starts very early to immediately damage the cell. All these processes are very subtle in their intensity and GLCM analysis and computational imaging methods based on fractal geometry, i.e. fractal and morphometric analysis, in particular their combination, are very sensitive for detecting and describing these early chromatin changes.

Gray level co-occurrence matrix texture analysis of germinal center light zone lymphocyte nuclei: physiology viewpoint with focus on apoptosis

In our study we investigated the relationship between conventional morphometric indicators of nuclear size and shape (area and circularity) and the parameters of gray level co-occurrence matrix texture analysis (entropy, homogeneity, and angular second moment) in cells committed to apoptosis. A total of 432 lymphocyte nuclei images from the spleen germinal center light zones (cells in early stages of apoptosis) were obtained from eight healthy male guinea pigs previously immunized with sheep red blood cells (antigen). For each nucleus, area, circularity, entropy, homogeneity, and angular second moment were determined. All measured parameters of gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) were significantly correlated with morphometric indicators of nuclear size and shape. The strongest correlation was observed between GLCM homogeneity and nuclear area (p < 0.0001, r(s) = 0.61). Angular second moment values were also highly significantly correlated with nuclear area (r(s)= 0.39, p < 0.0001). These results indicate that the GLCM method may be a powerful tool in evaluation of ultrastructural nuclear changes during early stages of the apoptotic process.