Ramalho Alan, Gauthier Marie-Frédérique, Maltais-Payette Ina, Ostinelli Giada, Hould Frédéric, Biertho Laurent, Tchernof André
École de nutrition, Institut Universitaire de Cardiologie et de Pneumologie de Québec-Université Laval, Québec, Canada.
École de Nutrition, Université Laval, Québec, Canada.
Adipocyte. 2025 Dec;14(1):2528437. doi: 10.1080/21623945.2025.2528437. Epub 2025 Jul 28.
The aim of this study was to create and validate a high-throughput method based on open-source software for the measurement of adipocyte diameters in white adipose tissue histological sections. Human omental and subcutaneous adipose tissue samples collected during bariatric surgery were used to prepare haematoxylin and eosin-stained histological slides. Adipocyte diameters were measured both manually and with an automated procedure created using ImageJ. Comparative analysis of our automated method with the manual measurement and associations of the mean adipocyte diameters with cardiometabolic markers were used to validate our method. A total of 377 adipose samples (190 participants) were included in the analysis. Pearson correlation of mean adipocyte diameters showed a strong linear relationship between methods ( = 0.87, < 0.0001). Omental adipocyte diameters of both methods were significantly associated with the same markers of cardiometabolic risk (fasting concentrations of TG, HDL-Chol, homoeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance, and visceral adiposity index values) with no significant differences between methods. There were also no significant differences between the manual and automated method regarding the correlations between mean subcutaneous adipocyte diameters and anthropometric or metabolic markers. In conclusion, we have created and validated a rapid automated method to measure adipocyte diameters from whole-slide adipose tissue images.
本研究的目的是创建并验证一种基于开源软件的高通量方法，用于测量白色脂肪组织组织学切片中的脂肪细胞直径。在减肥手术期间收集的人体网膜和皮下脂肪组织样本用于制备苏木精和伊红染色的组织学玻片。脂肪细胞直径通过手动测量以及使用ImageJ创建的自动化程序进行测量。将我们的自动化方法与手动测量进行比较分析，并将平均脂肪细胞直径与心脏代谢标志物进行关联，以验证我们的方法。分析共纳入377个脂肪样本（190名参与者）。平均脂肪细胞直径的Pearson相关性显示两种方法之间存在强线性关系（r = 0.87，P < 0.0001）。两种方法的网膜脂肪细胞直径均与相同的心脏代谢风险标志物（甘油三酯、高密度脂蛋白胆固醇的空腹浓度、胰岛素抵抗的稳态模型评估以及内脏脂肪指数值）显著相关，两种方法之间无显著差异。在平均皮下脂肪细胞直径与人体测量或代谢标志物之间的相关性方面，手动和自动化方法之间也无显著差异。总之，我们已经创建并验证了一种从全玻片脂肪组织图像测量脂肪细胞直径的快速自动化方法。
