Wilhelm bernhard workshop on the cell nucleus

CELL DEATH & NUCLEAR MARKERS OF DISEASE

FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS ON APOPTOTIC CELL NUCLEAR DOMAINS.

¹Burattini S., ¹Luchetti F., ¹Battistelli M., ^1,2Falcieri E.

¹Istituto di Scienze Morfologiche, University of Urbino “Carlo Bo”, and ²ITOI-CNR, Istituti Ortopedici Rizzoli, Bologna, Italy
Interphase nuclear chromatin is generally organized in particular and widely known domains which appear relatively comparable in various cell types, as well as after different technical procedures. Differently, apoptotic death induces a deep, presumably irreversible nuclear rearrangement, which extensively involves chromatin, and, even if less evidently, most other nuclear components. In this work we compare cell lineages known to be very different both in biological and morphological patterns, triggered to apoptosis by means of various physical and chemical agents. HL60 (promyelocytic), U937 (monoblastoid) and K562 (from human chronic myeloid leukemia) have been chosen as myeloid models. Thymocytes, CESS (B lymphoblasts) Jurkat and Molt-4 (T lymphoblasts) have been analysed as lymphoid cells (Mariani et al., 1999; Falcieri et al., 2000a). Hyperthermia, UV and gamma radiations were utilized as physical apoptotic triggers, while staurosporine, camptothecin, etoposide, methotrexate, interferon, mimosine and, very recently, a number of triazoles were used as chemical inducers. Apoptosis has been also investigated in a megakarioblastic model during platelet differentiation (Falcieri et al., 2000b) and, finally, in erythropoietin-related erythroid maturation of CD34 precursors. Nuclear changes were studied by light, fluorescence and electron microscopy, as well as by means of a number of cytochemical approaches (Luchetti et al., 2002). All these observations demonstrate that the behavior of apoptotic nuclear domains takes place in a higlily regulated and widely reproducible way, relatively independently of cell system and biochemistry.

References:

Mariani A.R. et al., Anat Rec, 254:1, 1999

Falcieri E. et al., Histochem Cell Biol, 113:135, 2000a

Falcieri E. et al., Anat Rec, 253:90, 2000b

Luchetti F. et al., Apoptosis 7:143, 2002