A quantitative analysis of the human bone marrow granulocytic cell lineage using the SAMBA 200 cell image processor. I. The normal maturation sequence.

A quantitative image analysis of the human normal bone marrow granulocytic line was performed using the SAMBA 200 image analyzer. The steps of image acquisition, preprocessing, segmentation and parametrization are described. Forty-one parameters were computed on 941 cell images belonging to the various maturation stages. The automated classification of these cells based upon a stepwise linear discriminant analysis resulted in 77% correctly classified cells; the five most discriminating parameters were the nuclear area, the nuclear convexity degree, the average cytoplasmic hue, the regularity of the nuclear boundary and the average cytoplasmic luminance. The evolution of the parameters correlates well with the cytologic evolution and the biochemical and functional events during the maturation process. It can be inferred from our results that the maturation sequence can be subdivided into two phases according to the evolution of the cell profiles. The first phase, from myeloblast to myelocyte, is discontinuous and appears as the critical point with regard to the expression of genes. The second phase, from myelocyte to polymorphonuclear cell, is a continuous sequence of transformations leading to the functional granulocyte.