Acta Medica Okayama volume19 issue3

The normal mitotic dog kidney cell division and the multinucleated giant cell formation and degeneration of the dog kidney cells infected with measles virus were observed by the phase-cinematography. It took only five minutes for the mitotic cell division. The cell assumed a spherical shape before mitosis, and the two divided cells grew to the flat cells on the bottle wall. The giant cell formation was definitely the result of cell fusion. The cellular contents of the multinucleated giant cell were exposed after buddings, and the cell itself died.

The author studied the hematopoietic disturbances of rabbit induced by saponin injection and drew the following conclusions: 1) By saponin injection, the structure of bone marrow is disintegrated and hematopoietic cells are released into the circulating blood forming extramedullary hematopietic foci mainly in liver and spleen. The main attacking point of saponin should be RES. Recovery of hematopoietic foci is associated with the recovery of RES. The most marked extramedullary hematopoiesis is found three days after the injection. Thereafter, bone-marrow hematopoiesis proceeds to recovery stage, during which hematopoietic foci in liver and spleen are preserved, especially those in spleen persist fairly for a long time. 2) Daily injections of India ink kept up over a long period of time after the treatment with saponin, prevent the recovery of anemia and bone-marrow hematopoiesis. The lymph nodes, whose RES escaped from the severe damage by India ink, keep the hematopoietic foci for a long time. 3) As far as hematopoiesis is concerned, there seems to be no functional differentiation among RE cells, though they seem to have a special function according to the organs to which they belong, e. g. antibody formation in lymph apparatus, hematopoiesis in bone marrow and red cell destruction in spleen.

Using double staining method of succinic dehydrogenase and cholinesterase, the structural differences of motor endplate in the red, the white and the intermediate muscle fibers of the mouse limb muscles were observed. The endplate of the white fiber had a large size and complicated interlacing structure. The endplate of the red fiber had a small size, simple and compact structure. The endplate of the intermediate fiber had a medium size and moderately developed structure.

1. By using a monolayer of tissue culture cells, JTC-3, JTC-3', JTC-3" and HeLa cells, the assays of neotetrazolium (NT) reduction at the cell level have been conducted on the cells without detaching the cells from the culture glass vessel wall. 2. It has been found that the activity of endogenous NT reductase is extremely high in the living tissue culture cells. The endogenous NT reductase activity is found to be in the descending order of HeLa > JTC-3' > JTC-3 > JTC-3". The endogenous NT reductase activity increased in the medium having a low level of proteins and decreased in the absence of yeast extract. 3. It has been demonstrated that most of the endogenous NT reduction in the JTC-3 cell groups takes place at the step of flavoprotein in the NADHdiaphorase system, and a portion of it occurs being coupled with the ubiquinone step. In contrast, in HeLa cell it is p:>stulated that aside from the NADH-diaphorase system, succinoxidase system is involved in this reaction. 4. The coupling site of the succinate NT reductase system with the terminal electron transport system in the JTC-3 cell groups also differs from that in HeLa cells. Namely, in JTC-3 cell groups about 50% of the coupling occurs at the step later than antimycin A sensitive step and the remaining 50 % most likely at the ubiquinone step~ whereas in the HeLa cell most of the coupling takes place at the step later than antimycin A sensitive step. 5. Although there can be observed variations in the activity of the succinate NT reductase, hardly any difference was observed among the JTC-3 cell groups in the rate of the reduced NT amounts at several coupling sites, revealing that the change in the composition of the culture medium does not bring about any essential change in the coupling sites and their mutual activity rates of succinate NT reductase system. 6. Both endogenous NT reductase activity and succinate NT reductase activity have been accelerated markedly by potassium cyanide. The result indicates that in living cell the electrons are not transferred to NT at the level of cytochrome oxidase and O2.

In cell cultures of Detroit 6, KB, and HeLa cells, treatment with certain amounts of 5-Fluorouracil resulted in the appearance of a strikingly distinct halo or chromophobic area, entirely encircling the compacted or contracted nucleoli, before the ultimate disintegration of the cells.