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In rat hepatocytes and isolated liver mitochondrial fractions, Cyclosporine A (CsA) is often used as a specific inhibitor of mitochondrial Ca(2+) release and as a specific blocker of mitochondrial membrane potential and permeability transition (MPT), which are all processes involved in the inhibition of apoptosis. However, neither inhibition nor induction of apoptosis by CsA has yet been described in the rat hepatocyte primary culture during incubation for 4 and 20 h. It was the purpose of the present study to examine by means of morphological and biochemical criteria the effects of CsA on apoptosis and to characterize the underlying mechanisms. Rat hepatocytes were cultured for 4 or 20 h with CsA at concentrations of 0, 10, 25, and 50 microM. Chromatin condensation and fragmentation, DNA fragmentation (TUNEL), membrane phosphatidylserine distribution (Annexin V), caspase-1, -3, and -6 activity, mitochondrial membrane potential (Rhodamine 123), and cytochrome c release into the cytosol were investigated. Four hours after CsA treatment, chromatin condensation and fragmentation and the number of TUNEL- and Annexin V-positive cells increased dose-dependently without any observable enzyme leakage, which indicated the integrity of the outer cell membrane. After 20 h of CsA incubation apoptosis parameters were further increased and were accompanied by the increased activity of the cysteine protease, caspase-3 (CPP 32), and slightly increased caspase-6 (Mch 2), but not caspase-1 (ICE). The caspase-3 inhibitor, Ac-DEVD-CHO, inhibited caspase-3 activation and attenuated CsA-induced apoptosis and LDH leakage. The caspase-6 inhibitor, Ac-VEID-CHO, only marginally inhibited CsA-induced apoptosis. Decreased mitochondrial membrane potential and cytochrome c release went in parallel with ultrastructural mitochondrial changes and might be regarded as early events that trigger the apoptosis cascade. Transmission electron microscopy confirmed an increase in the number of necrotic cells after 20 h, but not after 4 h, compared with controls., (Copyright 2000 Academic Press.)

A method based on image analysis and applicable in pharmacology and toxicology is described that has been designed to meet the statistical requirements for the determination of liver hypertrophy or hyperplasia. An algorithm has been developed to detect and count fluorescent nuclei in Feulgen-stained liver sections (12,500 to 25,000 nuclei or 170 to 350 fields of observation per section within 2-4 hr) by means of fully automatic image analysis with the Leitz Texture Analysis System (TAS) (up to 23 sections in series on the microscope stage). The applicability of this method to conventionally derived, formaldehyde-fixed, tissue sections has been tested on 3-microns sections cut from archived paraplast blocks of already diagnosed materials. Alterations in the liver induced by eight different compounds administered perorally for 28 days to rats have been studied. The morphometric results were found to be specific for a given compound and revealed reproducible and statistically significant dose dependencies of hypertrophy or hyperplasia, or both. Increased frequencies of mitotic figures observed by eye correlated reasonably well with the morphometrically determined hyperplasia, but many hyperplastic livers revealed no mitotic figures. By contrast, the histological diagnoses of an increased degree of hypertrophy were only poorly correlated with the morphometric determinations and, in many instances, were made in livers showing no decrease in the frequency of nuclei. On the other hand, the results from electron microscopy agreed well with the corresponding morphometric analyses: in cases with predominant hypertrophy the proliferation of the smooth endoplasmic reticulum was distinct or striking, or the peroxisomes were altered and increased in number, whereas no obvious ultrastructural changes were seen in cases of morphometrically exclusive hyperplasia.