Basgen John M, Nicholas Susanne B, Mauer Michael, Rozen Silvia, Nyengaard Jens R
Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
Nephron Exp Nephrol. 2006;103(4):e139-48. doi: 10.1159/000092905. Epub 2006 Apr 21.
Researchers have long been interested in counting the number of cells within the glomerulus. Investigators using different techniques have yielded conflicting results. The most direct method is to count the cells in serial sections from the entire glomerulus. This Exhaustive Count method is not usually practical. The disector/fractionator method counts the number of cells in a fraction of sections. The total is estimated from the product of the cell count and the reciprocal of the fraction. The Weibel-Gomez method determines the density of cells per glomerulus, then multiplies this density by glomerular volume to obtain cell number. In this study, we compared the disector/fractionator and Weibel-Gomez methods to identify a practical alternative for the time-consuming Exhaustive Count method.
Glomeruli from a normal mouse kidney were completely sectioned and images obtained. Appropriate images were used to count glomerular cell number using each method.
The Exhaustive Count method yielded 213 +/- 22 (mean +/- SD) cells/glomerulus vs. the disector/fractionator average of 211 +/- 29 cells/glomerulus (p = 0.82). The Weibel-Gomez method average of 235 +/- 26 cells/glomerulus was statistically different from the Exhaustive Count method (p = 0.003).
The Weibel-Gomez produced a 10% overestimation, whereas the disector/fractionator method was unbiased and thus a good substitute for the Exhaustive Count method.
长期以来，研究人员一直对肾小球内细胞数量的计数感兴趣。采用不同技术的研究人员得出了相互矛盾的结果。最直接的方法是对整个肾小球的连续切片中的细胞进行计数。这种详尽计数法通常并不实用。分离/分割法对部分切片中的细胞进行计数。总数通过细胞计数与该部分倒数的乘积来估算。魏贝尔 - 戈麦斯法确定每个肾小球的细胞密度，然后将该密度乘以肾小球体积以获得细胞数量。在本研究中，我们比较了分离/分割法和魏贝尔 - 戈麦斯法，以找到一种耗时的详尽计数法的实用替代方法。
对正常小鼠肾脏的肾小球进行完整切片并获取图像。使用合适的图像，用每种方法对肾小球细胞数量进行计数。
详尽计数法得出每个肾小球有213±22（平均值±标准差）个细胞，而分离/分割法的平均值为211±29个细胞/肾小球（p = 0.82）。魏贝尔 - 戈麦斯法的平均值为235±26个细胞/肾小球，与详尽计数法在统计学上有差异（p = 0.003）。
魏贝尔 - 戈麦斯法高估了10%，而分离/分割法无偏差，因此是详尽计数法的良好替代方法。
