Quantitative fluorescence spectrophotometry of acridine orange-stained unfixed cells. Potential for automated detection of human uterine cancer.

After staining with acridine orange (AO), the nuclei of unfixed cells from the human female genital tract exhibited the same fluorescence behavior previously observed for human and murine leukocytes and mouse ascites tumor cells. With staining conditions chosen to assure saturation of the green-fluorescing AO-nucleic acid complex in normal cells, corrected fluorescence emission spectra were recorded from the entire nucleus of 341 cells taken from 32 normal and 28 abnormal patients. Intensity of the recorded spectra was expressed in phosphor particle units, a fixed arbitrary unit of fluorescence intensity, to display intensity differences among the spectra from the various cell types. In all abnormal samples, one or more cells were found with 530-nm nuclear fluorescence intensity considerably greater than the maximum intensity recorded from normal cells. Determination of the adequacy of 530-nm nuclear fluorescence intensity as a criterion for cancer detection requires additional investigation. Additional criteria, if needed, may be supplied by the metachromasy of AO-stained unfixed cells.