Image processing in pathology. X. Electron microscopic morphometric analysis of human lymphocyte subpopulations.

In the present paper, methods of automatic image processing were used for a fine structural differentiation of lymphocyte subpopulations in purified non-labelled lymphocyte suspensions from peripheral blood. It was found that lymphocyte subpopulations differ in several morphological features which have been generated from the whole cell as well as from the nucleus. In general, these differences are greater than those attributed to individual deviations as well as as to influences from the preparation. As found by immunological methods, the composition of morphologically determined subpopulations corresponds to T- and non- T-cells. A preliminary functional interpretation fo the morphological differences is discussed.