QUANTITATIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF GROWTH OF KIDNEY TISSUES CULTIVATED <i>in vitro </i>FROM ANIMALS OF DIFFERENT AGES
The method of cell and tissue culture in vitro is widely used for the study of structural cytophysiological properties of body cells. Placing tissue fragments into artificial culture media allows one to assess the viability of tissues as well as the regenerative and adaptive ability of cells. This paper presents the results of quantitative assessments of in vitro growth capacity of kidney tissue fragments from animals (mice) of different ages, using the method of multiple tissue cultures. Renal tissue fragments were cultivated under identical conditions on the surface of perforated Millipore filters. For a single assessment of culture growth, up to 315 tissue microfragments were used, allowing us to perform a more accurate assessment of their quantitative parameters. The growth was estimated by photometry using the Imagej computer program. The research revealed that with ageing the ability of tissues to form growing cell colonies decreases significantly and their growth slows down. The comparison of tissues of animals aged 30 and140 days showed that 4.7 times less cultures were produced from older animals and their mean area was 1.8 times less than that of cultures from older animals; whereas in cultures from animals aged 10 and 160 days, the difference was 15.7 times and 4.3 times, respectively. The research helped to clarify the pronounced dependence of the growth of epithelial cells of kidney tissue fragments on the age of animals, which is manifested in the decreased number of formed cultures and inhibited growth of cell colonies.