Institute of Functional and Applied Anatomy, Hannover Medical School, 30625 Hannover, Germany.
Biomedical Research in Endstage and Obstructive Lung Disease Hannover (BREATH), Member of the German Center for Lung Research (DZL), 30625 Hannover, Germany.
Cells. 2022 Jun 26;11(13):2032. doi: 10.3390/cells11132032.
Design-based stereology is the gold standard for obtaining unbiased quantitative morphological data on volume, surface area, and length, as well as the number of tissues, cells or organelles. In cardiac research, the introduction of a stereological method to unbiasedly estimate the number of cardiomyocytes has considerably increased the use of stereology. Since its original description, various modifications to this method have been described. A particular field in which this method has been employed is the normal developmental life cycle of cardiomyocytes after birth, and particularly the question of when, during postnatal development, cardiomyocytes lose their capacity to divide and proliferate, and thus their inherent regenerative ability. This field is directly related to a second major application of stereology in recent years, addressing the question of what consequences intrauterine growth restriction has on the development of the heart, particularly of cardiomyocytes. Advances have also been made regarding the quantification of nerve fibers and collagen deposition as measures of heart innervation and fibrosis. In the present review article, we highlight the methodological progress made in the last 20 years and demonstrate how stereology has helped to gain insight into the process of normal cardiac development, and how it is affected by intrauterine growth restriction.
基于设计的体视学是获得关于体积、表面积和长度以及组织、细胞或细胞器数量的无偏定量形态学数据的金标准。在心脏研究中，引入一种体视学法来无偏地估计心肌细胞数量，大大增加了体视学的应用。自最初描述以来，已经描述了对该方法的各种修改。该方法被应用于一个特定领域，即出生后心肌细胞的正常发育生命周期，特别是在出生后发育过程中何时，心肌细胞失去分裂和增殖的能力，从而失去其内在的再生能力。这一领域与近年来体视学的另一个主要应用直接相关，即探讨宫内发育受限对心脏，特别是心肌细胞发育的影响。在神经纤维和胶原沉积的定量方面也取得了进展，作为心脏神经支配和纤维化的衡量标准。在本综述文章中，我们强调了过去 20 年中取得的方法学进展，并展示了体视学如何帮助我们深入了解正常心脏发育过程，以及它如何受到宫内发育受限的影响。
