A simple morphological method for screening drug-induced lipidosis in cultured blood monocytes.

Abstract

We have invented a simple screening method of detecting drug-induced lipidosis mor-phologically by using cultured rat blood monocytes. In this method, rat blood is centrifuged in iodinated gradient medium to separate monocytes, and these cells are then incubated on chamber slides. These slides are treated with 4, 4'-Diethylethoxyhexestrol at concentrations of 10-4, 10-5, and 10-6 M for 24 hours. Upon examination, light microscopic examination reveals dark blue granules in the cytoplasm of monocytes by acid hematein stain. Lamellar myeloid body formation can be detected in the electron microscopic specimens prepared with the inverted embedding method. This cultured monocyte system, using chamber slides, is considered to be a suitable tool for screening out potent lipidosis-inducing amphiphilic compounds and to be useful for studying structure-activity relationships, because of the simple and fast processes.