Un nuovo metodo specifico di determinazione della attività antianemico perniciosa

Summary

In the early stages of development chick embryo's blood-cells are megaloblasts. As the author has demonstrated previously, folic acid and hepatic extracts, when injected into fecundated hen's eggs, are able, under certain experimental conditions, to cause a transformation of megaloblastic cells into normoblasts, the author proposes to use this phenomenon as a new test for antianæmic activity.

There is a mathematical-algebraic relation between percentage of normoblasts present in chick-embryo blood (at 60 h of incubation, treated with antianæmic substance) and the concentration of folic acid or hepatic extract, which allows the activity of antianæmic substance to be expressed numerically.

The empirical standard curve of the quantitative relations between percentage of normoblasts found and concentrations of folic acid is reported.

The author finds that it is preferable to calculate the intensity of antianæmic activity from reduction in diameter of the cellular nucleus of chick-embryo blood-cells rather than from their morphological aspect.

Under these experimental conditions many cells are present whose morphological aspect is intermediate between normo and megaloblasts, and therefore classification is uncertain and difficult, while the citometric values of nuclear diameters are clearly reduced to normoblast values.

The standard curve is not substantially modified if the values of cells having a 4.98 micron nuclear diameter are substituted to the percentage of cells having normoblasts' morphological caracter.