Flow cytometric analysis of mouse hepatocyte ploidy. I. Preparative and mathematical protocol.

Preparative and mathematical procedures are presented for the investigation of the ploidy pattern of liver cells. The DNA content of enzymatically-isolated liver cells and of nuclei was measured by flow cytometry. The true DNA content could not be measured directly due to super-position of statistical coincidences (demanding "first mode correction") and incomplete separation of the nuclei in binucleate hepatocytes (demanding "second mode correction"). The statistical coincidences (caused by simultaneous measurement of two or more particles or subsequent reaggregation of particles) were corrected by splitting the "unnatural" i.e., aneuploid DNA content, and classifying it with the normal ploidy classes. In addition, the higher normal ploidy classes were reduced by the proportion of the measured coincidences in favour of the lower ones. The second mode correction applied to nuclear distributions only. It is a probability calculation based on counting nuclear pairs on microscope slides, and resulted in a 10% increase of diploid nuclei and a larger standard deviation between the age groups. 8c and 16c values were reduced. The tetraploid values were unchanged.