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Correlation Between Barr Body and Overall Chromatin Decondensation in Vitro

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Correlation Between Barr Body and Overall Chromatin Decondensation in Vitro J. Cell Set. 47, 187-195 (> 981) 187 Printed in Great Britain © Company of Biologist! Limited 1981 CORRELATION BETWEEN BARR BODY AND OVERALL CHROMATIN DECONDENSATION IN VITRO M. GRATTAROLA.f A. BELMONT AND C. NICOLINI* Division of Biophysict, Department of Physiology/Biophysics, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. SUMMARY Geometric and densitometric properties of the Barr body of early and late phase II confluent human fibroblasts are analysed by the automated image analyser Quantimet 720 D. In cells with the same 2C DNA content, the state of condensation of the Barr body varies propor- tionally with the state of condensation of the entire nucleus yielding a correlation between nuclear and Barr body area. In light of these results, indicating the participation of the Barr body in the overall process of chromatin condensation and decondensation, a definitive 'static' separation between dense ('heterochromatic') and dispersed (' euchromatic') regions of chromatin seems to be arbitrary. The implications of these results in terms of a possible attachment of interphase chromatin to the nuclear envelope are briefly discussed. INTRODUCTION The division of interphase chromatin into two distinct regions, a dense 'hetero- chromatic' region and a dispersed 'euchromatic' region, and the often suggested correspondence of the dense region with transcriptionally inactive chromatin and the dispersed region with genetically active chromatin is still a matter of great controversy as well as confusion. For a review see Comings (1972), Maclean & Hilder (1977) or Back (1976). Since this generalization was made, large modulations in the morphology of the entire nucleus have been shown to occur as a function of the physiological state in a variety of cell systems, including changes in cell cycle phase (Nicolini, 1980; Kendall et al. 1977 a), virus transformation (Kendall, Beltrame & Nicolini, 1979), serum stimulation of human diploid fibroblasts (Kendall, Wu, Giaretti & Nicolini, 19776; Nicolini, Kendall, De Saive & Giaretti, 1977), 'activation' of hen erythrocytes (Bolund, Ringertz & Harris, 1969), PHA stimulation of human lymphocytes (Vonder- heid et al. 1980), and cell aging (Sawicki, 1979). In particular, nuclear condensation in these systems (as measured by the integrated optical density, proportional to DNA content, divided by nuclear area - i.e. the average optical density) was shown to relate • To whom reprint requests should be addressed. f Present address: Sezione di Ingegneria Biofisica, Istituto di Elettrotecnica, Genoa University, Genoa, Italy. 188 M. Grattarola, A. Belmont and C. Nicolini closely with increased condensation of nuclear chromatin as revealed by optical and electron microscopy, as well as alterations in chromatin structure as measured by template activity, circular dichroism, and dye intercalation in these systems. Specifi- cally, increasing nuclear condensation was correlated with decreasing template activity, dye intercalation, and molar ellipticity at 272 nm (Nicolini, 1979). Exactly opposite results were observed for nuclear decondensation (relaxation). Such observations imply modulations in the chromatin structure of the entire genome occurring with changes in the physiological state of the cell. Meanwhile several independent investigations of the Barr body, which has long been considered a classic example of heterochromatin, have reported that in a fraction of the entire cellular population studied the Barr body is not detectable (Schwarzacher, 1963; Mittwoch, 1967), and that the appearance of Barr bodies correlated with an increase in cell density (Klinger, Daview, Goldhuber & Ditta, 1968; Mokherjee, Moser & Witowsky, 1972; Mokherjee & San Sebastian, 1978). These results suggested an interpretation in which the Barr body participated in the overall modulations in chromatin structure associated with cell growth, either relaxing to a density below the level of visual detection (Schwarzacher, 1963) during certain phases of the cell cycle or further condensing with cell confluency (Klinger et al. 1968). In this paper we have explored quantitatively such a possibility verifying that, indeed, in human diploid fibroblasts the state of condensation of the Barr body varies proportionally with the overall state of condensation of the entire nucleus. MATERIALS AND METHODS Cell culture Human diploid fibroblasts (WI-38) obtained from the American Type Cell Culture Collec- tion (Rockville, Maryland) were used in all experiments. Cells were routinely grown at 37 °C with Eagle Basal Medium supplemented with 10 % foetal calf serum (GIBCO) in 75 -cm1 Corning plastic culture flasks. Early phase II cells were seeded onto coverslips inside small Petri dishes and then fixed (3 :1 mixture of 80 % ethanol and acetic-acid) at 2, 5 and 10 days after seeding. In parallel, late phase II cells were grown under the same conditions and fixed 5 days after seeding. After fixation the cells were Feulgen stained directly on the coverslip, at the optimal hydrolysis conditions of 5 N HC1, at 37 °C, for 25 min (Linden, Fang, Zietz & Nicolini, 1979). Image analysis Nuclear images were magnified by a Zeiss Ultraphot microscope equipped with a 100 x oil-immersion planar achromat of 1-25 NA. Illumination was via a 100-W tungsten halogen light source equipped with a 540-nm filter (half-band width of 40 ran) and a condenser of 13 NA. The image was registered on a plumbicon scanner by means of a Reichert high quality magnification changer. Total magnification was 1250 x . Image analysis was performed using a Quantimet 720 automated image analyser (Cambridge Corp., New York) equipped with a 720-D densitometer. The scanner area is divided into 880 x 588 elements whose optical density can be digitized into 64 grey levels. The linear dimension of the approximately square picture element was determined to be 0-08 /tm by means of a stage micrometer (American Optical). A blank area of each slide was used to set the shade corrector and to calibrate the densitometer by means of neutral density filters. The linearity of the densitometer was verified using a neutral density wedge filter (Esco Products, New Jersey). Two types of measurements were made - those where the feature was the entire nucleus and those where the feature was the Barr body. For nuclear measurements, data were acquired on Barr body and chromatin 189 line with a digital computer. A uniform threshold of 0-03 O.D. was used for all slides to define the nuclear border. Field uniformity tests on a single nucleus positioned in 9 locations around the field yielded for all slides coefficients of variations of less than 2-5 % for integrated optical density (I.O.D. - proportional to total DNA content due to the stoichiometry of the Feulgen reaction) and 1 % for area. Variation of either parameter was less than 0-5 % for 10 consecutive measurements of a single image in the centre of the field. Measurements of the Barr body were made manually. The nuclear image was positioned at the centre of the field and the Barr body was centred in a square frame (30 x 30 picture points in dimension, corresponding to 2-5 x 2-5 /tm2) electronically generated. Two methods of measurement were used. First the optical density threshold was adjusted until the border of the detected region corresponded to the border of the Barr body (as judged by eye). This threshold was recorded as the optical threshold, by eye identification. Using this threshold value, the area and I.O.D. values (proportional to the DNA content of the Barr body whose border is defined visually) of the detected feature inside the 30 x 30 picture point square frame were recorded. (As the Barr body was nearly always denser than the area in its immediate vicinity, these measurements actually corresponded to the area and I.O.D. of the actual Barr body - that is the only significant detected feature inside the square frame was that of the Barr body.) Subsequently the optical density threshold was readjusted until the I.O.D. of the detected feature inside the square frame most nearly matched 2-66 % of the integrated optical density of the entire nucleus; this fraction (266%) corresponds to the fractional DNA content of an X chromosome as reported in the literature (Mendelsohn, 1979). This threshold was then re- corded as the optical density threshold by I.O.D. constraint, and the area of the detected feature inside the square frame was redetermined using this threshold. Essentially this second method defined the border of the Barr body through the constraint on I.O.D. RESULTS Two hundred nuclei from each slide were chosen randomly for measurement of the integrated optical density (I.O.D., proportional to the total amount of DNA present) and area of each nucleus. The area histograms corresponding to the subpopulations from these slides with 2C DNA content are shown in Fig. 1 and confirm previous findings on the increased nuclear condensation occurring with time after seeding (Belmont, Kendall & Nicolini, 1980). Also confirmed are reports of increased nuclear condensation occurring with cell aging (Sawicki, 1979). Using these histograms as a reference, in each slide studied (5 days after seeding, early and late phase II, and 10 days after seeding, early phase II) 2 relatively narrow ranges of area (one large and one small) were chosen and from these ranges 30-35 nuclei with 2C DNA content (as measured by I.O.D.) were selected for measurement of Barr body parameters as described above in the Materials and methods section. Through such sampling data were acquired from representative nuclei over a wide variation of nuclear condensation. Only a few cells (mainly from the small area classes), which had a wide distribution of dense nuclear regions of comparable density to the Barr body in other cells prevent- ing definite Barr body identification, were not considered. In most cells the Barr body was located at the nuclear border although in a few cases it was found near the centre of the nucleus or at the nuclear periphery but nonadjacent to the nuclear border.
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