ON THE PROGENITOR CELL MIGRATION VELOCITY

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Abstract
An attempt is presented to extract cell kinetic information from histomorphological features. It is applicable to rapidly proliferating tissues like the intestinal epithelium. Each replicating tissue has an origin where cells are formed and a periphery toward which cells migrate. The migration path along which they move is denominated as tissue radius on which all cell positions are mapped. Cell migration on the radius is associated with cell proliferation at tissue origin. Each mitosis there is associated with the displacement of all cells distal to it by 1 cell position. The more mitoses positioned between a cell and tissue origin, the greater its migration velocity. The cell migration velocity v(x) may be derived from the cumulative mitotic distribution on the radius, N(x), v(x) = N(x)/tm (tm = mitotic time). In this form v(x) represents also cell production at any point on the radius and may serve for the computation of other cell kinetic parameters like generation time. These arguments were illustrated on the rat incisor tooth inner enamel epithelium which was studied in the normal and rapidly erupting tooth.