Nucleus image properties and cell death in MCF-10F cells grown on slide substrates differing in nature and size.

The immortalized human breast epithelial cell line MCF-10F is an important tool for studies on experimental tumorigenesis induced by drugs, transfected Ha-ras oncogene, and hormones. Considering that many relevant data have thus far been established only for MCF-10F cells cultivated on glass, and that there are data showing different cell death ratios for tumorigenic cells obtained from benzo[a]pyrene (BP)-transformed MCF-10F cells cultivated on plastic compared with glass, nuclear parameters estimated by image analysis and cell death ratios were compared for cells grown on plastic and glass substrates differing in chamber surface sizes and working culture medium volumes. It was concluded that for slides with a growth size equal to 9.4 cm2, plastic substrate was more advantageous than glass for growing MCF-10F cells because although the apoptotic ratios (AR) for the cells grown on plastic are low as it would be expected for nontransformed cells, they are bigger than those reported for the BP-transformed MCF-10F cells cultivated on the same substrate but closer to those of the BP-transformed MCF-10F cells receiving a normal chromosome 17. In addition, the plastic substrate did not induce variable nuclear image results as those found in the latter. The 0.5-cm2-sized chambers on plastic slides proved to be inadequate for cell nuclear image analysis and cell death studies on account of the variable geometric, densitometric, and textural results and ARs produced and the unpublished consideration of a very slow growth rate generated under this growth condition.