Abstract
Various authors (Borrel, 1 Roskin, 2 Lipschütz, 3 Fischer, 4 Zweibaum 5 ) have indicated that the structure of Rous sarcoma cells shows certain peculiarities, which differentiate them from normal mesenchyme cells.
These indications are very fragmentary and there is little agreement between the various descriptions. The morphological features of the Rous sarcoma cell are still not sufficiently known.
The structural peculiarities of the Rous sarcoma cells appear with great clarity and they are easily detectable in pure culture of sarcoma cells. Our studies of cell strains, cultured without addition of normal tissue revealed that the sarcoma cells in vitro constantly show profound morphological alterations of their cytoplasma and nuclei, often associated with marked, indeed extraordinary hypertrophy of the entire cells.
In this note we report on the changes taking place in the nuclei of the sarcoma cells. The studies were made on cultures (preparations in toto and serial sections) fixed in Carnoy and stained with Giemsa.
The changes in the nucleus are very profound and may lead to definite disturbances of the entire nuclear structure. The nuclear ground substances, which is finely reticulated, or finely granular in normal spindle cells, and almost structureless in normal lymphoid cells, in sarcoma cells often appears as if precipitated. In numerous nuclei particulate masses become visible. The individual particles are more or less uniform in size and stand out distinctly on the almost colorless background. At first the particles are equally distributed throughout the nucleus; but later the granular material gathers in the central parts of the nuclei, leaving a wide or narrow zone, a clear halo, between the particulate aggregates and the nuclear membrane (Fig. 1). This zone appears empty, but in some preparations we can see that it is crossed by very fine threads running radially.
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