CYTOSPECTROPHOTOMETRIC INVESTIGATION OF CYTOPLASMIC RNA IN REGENERATING AND NEOPLASTIC LIVERS

  • 1 January 1978
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 37  (4) , 235-255
Abstract
A quantitative cytospectrophotometric investigation of the cytoplasmic hyperbasophilia that characterizes neoplastic transformation and the tumor cells in rats fed hepatocarcinogens was performed. The increase in the dye-binding capacity shown by the cytoplasmic RNA of these cell populations results primarily from a qualitative alteration which raises the affinity for basic dyes by a factor of nearly 2, and also to a change in concentration due to volumetric changes which may again double the staining intensity of these hepatocytes. This phenomenon of hyperbasophilia differs radically from the weak variations in basophilia observed in normal regenerating liver and in hyperplastic liver parenchyma of rats fed the carcinogenic diet, in which cases the changes appear to be related mainly to de novo RNA synthesis. The ribosomes may be the organelles responsible for the hyperbasophilic properties that hepatocytes acquire in areas of neoplastic transformation.