Comparative Morphometry of Epithelial- and Fibroblast-like Type Cells in Culture

Abstract

Two morphological types, epithelial- and fibroblast-like, can be visually observed in cultivated cells. The first includes rounded and inactive cells. The cells of the second type have an elongated shape and filopodia-like outgrowths. It is obvious that these characteristics are largely subjectively determined; this complicates studying the biology of the cells adaptable and adapted to growth in culture. We have proposed a quantitative characteristic (EF indices) for their formalization. They can be used to estimate the percentage of the contribution of, respectively, filopodia (EF1), elongation or polarization (EF2), and the cell roundness (EF3) to the cell shape using the example of six different cell lines, it was demonstrated that EF1 = 15.4 ± 2.6, EF2 = 2.9 ± 1.9, and EF3 = 81.7 ± 3.2% for epithelial-like cells and 39.9 ± 5.9, 4.5 ± 0.4, and 55.6 ± 5.6% for fibroblast-like cells. It was concluded that, if the cells of two lines have differences in at least one of the indices, they can be assigned to different cell types.