Silver-binding nucleolar organizer regions (AgNORs) in the normal epithelium of different parts of the digestive tract in rats.

The present study of AgNORs was carried out by computer-aided semiautomatic image analysis and involved epithelium, both surface and glandular, from various parts of the digestive tract in rats. It indicated that the number of AgNOR dots, their area and sometimes even the ratio of AgNOR area to nuclear area or the number of AgNOR clusters varied in epithelium from different parts of the digestive tract. The number and area of AgNORs correlated with the proliferative activity of cells in a given epithelium and they showed some typical features associated with the location. It should be noted that the area of AgNOR dots per nucleus and the area of a single AgNOR dot also positively correlated with the nuclear area.