Enumeration of microprocesses of T-lymphoma cells by two morphometric methods using SEM and TEM

We have demonstrated that the number of pseudopodia is directly correlated with cell differentiation and carcinogenesis in the squamous epithelium. Microprocesses over T-lymphocytes may also reflect cell differentiation or a functional state of the cells as seen in the epithelial cell model, although their functions are not well understood. Visual quantification of spatially distributed bodies such as microprocesses observed with a scanning electron microscope (SEM) is inherently poor. That is, exact quantitation of the number of microprocesses per cell may be necessary to demonstrate a smaller difference in frequency of such structure. One drawback of previous attempts to use such a method was that the quantitation of a structure over a surface which was at a steep angle to the film plane could not be accurate. We developed a modified method of enumeration with SEM and another method with a transmission electron microscope (TEM), using cultured murine T-lymphoma cells (EL-4) as a model, and the results were compared.