CHARACTERIZATION BY MEANS OF DELAUNAY TRIANGULATION AND VORONOI PAVING OF THE INFLUENCE OF ANTIHORMONE AND OR ANTI-GROWTH FACTOR ANTIBODIESON THE IN-VITRO CELL-GROWTH OF HUMAN COLORECTAL NEOPLASTIC CELL-LINES/

A new tool is described which makes it possible to evaluate directly t he influence of various growth factors on in vitro neoplastic cell gro wth on the one hand and to look at a concept of differentiation in ter ms of population dynamics, on the other. This tool relies upon the dig ital cell image analyses of Feulgen-stained nuclei and the mathematica l method of Voronoi paving. This technique enabled us to characterize the influence on the proliferation and the differentiation of the HCT- 15 and LoVo colorectal cell lines of anti-gastrin (G), anti-estradiol (E(2)), anti-epidermal growth factor (EGF), anti-luteinizing hormone-r eleasing hormone (LHRH), and anti-transforming growth factor alpha (TG F alpha) and beta (TGF beta) antibodies. Two variants were set up with respect to each of the two cell lines, i.e, one growing in culture me dium supplemented with 5% fetal calf serum (FCS) and another supplemen ted with 1% FCS+10 nM G+10 nM E(2). The data show that it is possible to characterize the cell clone structure and to assess growth rate con comitantly by direct cell counts. It further appears that while the an ti-hormone and/or anti-growth factor antibody-induced effects on growt h were relatively similar, these effects were in sharp contrast at the level of cell clone architecture.