Central Spheroid Research Articles

The e-TidalGCs project

We present the e-TidalGCs project, aimed at modeling and predicting the extra-tidal features surrounding all Galactic globular clusters for which 6D phase-space information, masses, and sizes are available (currently numbering 159 globular clusters). We focus the analysis and presentation of the results on the distribution of extra-tidal material on the sky, as well as on the different structures found at different heliocentric distances. We emphasize the wide variety of morphologies found: beyond the canonical tidal tails, our models reveal that the extra-tidal features generated by globular clusters take a wide variety of shapes, from thin and elongated shapes to thick and complex halo-like structures. We also compare some of the most well-studied stellar streams found around Galactic globular clusters to our model predictions, namely, those associated with the clusters NGC 3201, NGC 4590, NGC 5466, and Pal 5. Additionally, we investigate how the distribution and extension in the sky of the simulated streams vary with the Galactic potential by making use of three different models, either containing a central spheroid, not containing one, or containing a stellar bar. Overall, our models predict that the mass lost by the current globular cluster population in the field from the last 5 Gyrs is between 0.3 − 2.1 × 107 M⊙. This amount is comparable to a value between 7–55% of the current mass. Most of this lost mass is found in the inner Galaxy, with the half-mass radius of this population being between 4–6 kpc. The outputs of the simulations will be publicly available, coinciding with the unique opportunity presented by the delivery of the ESA Gaia mission and complementary spectroscopic surveys. Their exquisite data will offer the possibility to carry out novel comparisons with the models discussed in this work.

Abstract 3597: SUV420H2-mediated regulation of collective invasion in triple-negative breast cancer

Abstract Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women and metastasis is the leading cause of breast cancer-related mortality. While the factors leading to metastasis remain poorly understood, epigenetic changes in the cancer cell are likely strongly associated with the shift from primary tumor to metastasis. There are several breast cancer subtypes, the most aggressive of which is triple-negative breast cancer which is difficult to treat in part because it is prone to metastasis. In the early stages of metastasis, cells from the primary tumor invade the surrounding tissue before breaking away and seeding metastases. In some cases, tumor cells invade as clusters of cells that migrate as a group and maintain their cell-cell contacts through a process known as collective invasion. These clusters of collectively invading cells have been shown to seed circulating tumor cell clusters that are more efficient at forming metastases than single tumor cells. SUV420H2 is a histone methyltransferase that trimethylates histone H4 lysine 20 (H4K20me3), an epigenetic mark associated with transcriptional repression. Triple-negative breast cancer has lower levels of SUV420H2 and H4K20me3 levels than more luminal subtypes. Our lab and others have found that downregulation or inhibition of SUV420H2 promotes increased plasticity in the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, a transcriptional program associated with cancer metastasis. Our objective was to use a three-dimensional tumor spheroid system to determine the role of SUV420H2 and H4K20me3 on breast cancer invasion. We found that in immortalized non-tumorigenic breast cells grown as spheroids in an extracellular matrix, knockdown of SUV420H2 promotes invasion. Treatment of triple-negative breast cancer spheroids with an inhibitor of SUV420H2 (A196) also leads to an increase in invasion, as well as a shift in invasive phenotype from one where cells invade as single cells to a one where cells invade as collective chains emanating from the central spheroid. This suggests that reduced levels of SUV420H2 and the associated changes in histone marks and transcriptional programming in triple-negative breast cancer promote a phenotypic shift from single cell to collective invasion and may be one factor contributing to the increased metastatic potential of this subtype. Future studies will focus on characterizing the effects of SUV420H2 loss on gene and protein expression as well as chromatin in invading cells in tumor spheroids. Citation Format: Emily Campbell Whitt, Laura M. McLane, Paula M. Vertino. SUV420H2-mediated regulation of collective invasion in triple-negative breast cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 3597.

From Naked Spheroids to Disky Galaxies: How Do Massive Disk Galaxies Shape Their Morphology?

We investigate the assembly history of massive disk galaxies and describe how they shape their morphology through cosmic time. Using SHARDS and HST data, we modeled the surface brightness distribution of 91 massive galaxies at redshift 0.14 < z ≤ 1 in the wavelength range 0.5–1.6 μm, deriving the uncontaminated spectral energy distributions of their bulges and disks separately. This spectrophotometric decomposition allows us to compare the stellar population properties of each component in individual galaxies. We find that the majority of massive galaxies (∼85%) build inside-out, growing their extended stellar disk around the central spheroid. Some bulges and disks could start forming at similar epochs, but these bulges grow more rapidly than their disks, assembling 80% of their mass in ∼0.7 and ∼3.5 Gyr, respectively. Moreover, we infer that both older bulges and older disks are more massive and compact than younger stellar structures. In particular, we find that bulges display a bimodal distribution of mass-weighted ages; i.e., they form in two waves. In contrast, our analysis of the disk components indicates that they form at z ∼ 1 for both first- and second-wave bulges. This translates to first-wave bulges taking longer to acquire a stellar disk (5.2 Gyr) compared to second-wave, less compact spheroids (0.7 Gyr). We do not find distinct properties (e.g., mass, star formation timescale, and mass surface density) for the disks in both types of galaxies. We conclude that the bulge mass and compactness mainly regulate the timing of the stellar disk growth, driving the morphological evolution of massive disk galaxies.

Orbit evolution in growing stellar bars: bar-supporting orbits at the vertical ILR region

ABSTRACT We investigate the evolution of orbital shapes at the inner Lindblad resonance region of a rotating 3D bar, the mass of which is growing with time. We evaluate in time-dependent models, during a 5 Gyr period, the importance of orbits with initial conditions known to play a significant role in supporting peanut-like structures in autonomous systems. These orbits are the central family of periodic orbits (x1) and vertical perturbations of it, orbits of its standard 3D bifurcations at the region (x1v1 and x1v2), as well as orbits in their neighbourhood. The knowledge of the regular or chaotic character of these orbits is essential as well, because it allows us to estimate their contribution to the support of a rotating bar and, more importantly, the dynamical mechanisms that make it possible. This is calculated by means of the GALI2 index. We find that orbital patterns existing in the autonomous case, persist for longer times in the more massive bar models, and even more so in a model in which the central spheroid component of our adopted galactic potential becomes rather insignificant. The peanut-supporting orbits that we find, have a regular or, in most cases, a weakly chaotic character. There are cases in which orbits starting close to unstable periodic orbits in an autonomous model behave as regular and support the bar when its mass increases with time. As a rule of thumb for the orbital dynamics of our non-autonomous models at a certain time, can be considered the dynamics of the corresponding frozen systems around that time.

The age of the Milky Way inner stellar spheroid from RR Lyrae population synthesis

The central kiloparsecs of the Milky Way are known to host an old, spheroidal stellar population, whose spatial and kinematical properties set it apart from the boxy-peanut structure that constitutes most of the central stellar mass. The nature of this spheroidal population, whether it is a small classical bulge, the innermost stellar halo, or a population of disk stars with large initial velocity dispersion, remains unclear. This structure is also a promising candidate to play host to some of the oldest stars in the Galaxy. Here we address the topic of the inner stellar spheroid age, using spectroscopic and photometric metallicities for a sample of 935 RR Lyrae stars that are constituents of this component. By means of stellar population synthesis, we derive an age-metallicity relation for RR Lyrae populations. We infer, for the RR Lyrae stars in the bulge spheroid, an extremely ancient age of 13.41 ± 0.54 Gyr and conclude they were among the first stars to form in what is now the Milky Way galaxy. Our age estimate for the central spheroid shows a remarkable agreement with the age profile that has been inferred for the Milky Way stellar halo, suggesting a connection between the two structures. However, we find mild evidence for a transition in the halo properties atrGC ∼ 5 kpc. We also investigate formation scenarios for metal-rich RR Lyrae stars, such as binarity and helium variations, and consider whether they can provide alternative explanations for the properties of our sample. We conclude that within our framework, the only viable alternative is to have younger, slightly helium-rich, RR Lyrae stars. This is a hypothesis that would open intriguing questions for the formation of the inner stellar spheroid.

Bifurcation in the tidal streams of Sagittarius: Numerical Simulations

N-body simulations of the interaction between the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy and the Milky Way are performed to study whether it is possible to reproduce both the bifurcations in the tidal streams and the physical properties of Sagittarius. Both galaxies are simulated as sets of particles (live potentials). The initial structures are formed using GALIC and the gravitational interaction between these galaxies is simulated with gadget-2. Sagittarius initially is simulated as a rotating disk-type galaxy with two components: dark matter halo and stellar disk and the Milky Way is a disk galaxy with three components: dark matter halo, stellar disk and central spheroid. Several angles between the orbital angular momentum and the disc angular momentum in the range 180o ≤ θ ≤ 0o were simulated, showing that, although the position and physical properties of Sagittarius are not reproduced entirely by the remnant, the bifurcations appear clearly when 180o ≤ θ < 90o. -

The three phases of galaxy formation

We investigate the origin of the Hubble sequence by analysing the evolution of the kinematic morphologies of central galaxies in the EAGLE cosmological simulation. By separating each galaxy into disk and spheroidal stellar components and tracing their evolution along the merger tree, we find that the morphology of galaxies follows a common evolutionary trend. We distinguish three phases of galaxy formation. These phases are determined primarily by mass, rather than redshift. For M_star < 10^{9.5} M_sun galaxies grow in a disorganised way, resulting in a morphology that is dominated by random stellar motions. This phase is dominated by in-situ star formation, partly triggered by mergers. In the mass range 10^{9.5} M_sun < M_star < 10^{10.5} M_sun galaxies evolve towards a disk-dominated morphology, driven by in-situ star formation. The central spheroid (i.e. the bulge) at z = 0 consists mostly of stars that formed in-situ, yet the formation of the bulge is to a large degree associated with mergers. Finally, at M_star > 10^{10.5} M_sun growth through in-situ star formation slows down considerably and galaxies transform towards a more spheroidal morphology. This transformation is driven more by the buildup of spheroids than by the destruction of disks. Spheroid formation in these galaxies happens mostly by accretion at large radii of stars formed ex-situ (i.e. the halo rather than the bulge).

Interleukin 6 Plays a Role in the Migration of Magnetically Levitated Mesenchymal Stem Cells Spheroids

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) reside quiescently within a specialised ‘niche’ environment in the bone marrow. However, following appropriate signalling cues, MSCs mobilise and migrate out from the niche, typically toward either sites of injury (a regenerative response) or toward primary tumours (an intrinsic homing response, which promotes MSCs as cellular vectors for therapeutic delivery). To date, very little is known about MSC mobilisation. By adopting a 3D MSC niche model, whereby MSC spheroids are cultured within a type I collagen gel, recent studies have highlighted interleukin-6 (IL-6) as a key cytokine involved in MSC migration. Herein, the ability of IL-6 to induce MSC migration was further investigated, and the key matrix metalloproteinases used to effect cell mobilisation were identified. Briefly, the impact of IL-6 on the MSC migration in a two-dimensional model systems was characterised—both visually using an Ibidi chemotaxis plate array (assessing for directional migration) and then via a standard 2D monolayer experiment, where cultured cells were challenged with IL-6 and extracted media tested using an Abcam Human MMP membrane antibody array. The 2D assay displayed a strong migratory response toward IL-6 and analysis of the membrane arrays data showed significant increases of several key MMPs. Both data sets indicated that IL-6 is important in MSC mobilisation and migration. We also investigated the impact of IL-6 induction on MSCs in 3D spheroid culture, serving as a simplistic model of the bone marrow niche, characterised by fluorescently tagged magnetic nanoparticles and identical membrane antibody arrays. An increase in MMP levels secreted by cells treated with 1 ng/mL IL-6 versus control conditions was noted in addition to migration of cells away from the central spheroid mass.

GASP V: Ram-pressure stripping of a ring Hoag’s-like galaxy in a massive cluster

Through an ongoing MUSE program dedicated to study gas removal processes in galaxies (GAs Stripping Phenomena in galaxies with MUSE, GASP), we have obtained deep and wide integral field spectroscopy of the galaxy JO171. This galaxy resembles the Hoag's galaxy, one of the most spectacular examples of ring galaxies, characterized by a completely detached ring of young stars surrounding a central old spheroid. At odds with the isolated Hoag's galaxy, JO171 is part of a dense environment, the cluster Abell 3667, which is causing gas stripping along tentacles. Moreover, its ring counter-rotates with respect to the central spheroid. The joint analysis of the stellar populations and the gas/stellar kinematics shows that the origin of the ring was not due to an internal mechanism, but was related to a gas accretion event that happened in the distant past, prior to accretion onto Abell 3667, most probably within a filament. More recently, since infall in the cluster, the gas in the ring has been stripped by ram- pressure, causing the quenching of star formation in the stripped half of the ring. This is the first observed case of ram pressure stripping in action in a ring galaxy, and MUSE observations are able to reveal both of the events (accretion and stripping) that caused dramatic transformations in this galaxy.

The Fornax Deep Survey with VST. II. Fornax A: A Two-phase Assembly Caught in the Act

Abstract As part of the Fornax Deep Survey with the ESO VLT Survey Telescope, we present new g- and r-band mosaics of the SW group of the Fornax Cluster. It covers an area of 3 × 2 square degrees around the central galaxy NGC 1316. The deep photometry, the high spatial resolution of OmegaCam, and the large covered area allow us to study the galaxy structure, trace stellar halo formation, and look at the galaxy environment. We map the surface brightness profile out to 33′ (∼200 kpc ∼ 15R e ) from the galaxy center, down to arcsec−2 and arcsec−2. This allow us to estimate the scales of the main components dominating the light distribution, which are the central spheroid, inside 5.′5 (∼33 kpc), and the outer stellar envelope. Data analysis suggests that we are catching in the act the second phase of the mass assembly in this galaxy, since the accretion of smaller satellites is going on in both components. The outer envelope of NGC 1316 still hosts the remnants of the accreted satellite galaxies that are forming the stellar halo. We discuss the possible formation scenarios for NGC 1316, by comparing the observed properties (morphology, colors, gas content, kinematics, and dynamics) with predictions from cosmological simulations of galaxy formation. We find that (i) the central spheroid could result from at least one merging event (it could be a preexisting early-type disk galaxy with a lower-mass companion) and (ii) the stellar envelope comes from the gradual accretion of small satellites.

Kinematic Decoupled Core Paradigm: Counterrotation or Just Warping

Several mechanisms have been proposed in recent years to explain kinematic decoupled cores (KDCs) in early type galaxies as well as the large differences in angular momentum between KDCs and host galaxy. Most of the proposed scenarios involve large fractions of merging events, high speed interactions with dwarf spheroidal galaxies, cusp effect of the dark matter density profiles, etc. We here argue that counterrotation as well as fast and slow rotation of disks or spheroids at the center of galaxies can also be explained by a misalignment of the central spheroid equatorial plane with regard to that defined by the observed external stellar rotation. Contrary to what happens at the outer region of disk galaxies, once instability has led to the inner warped core, the perturbed orbits can maintain a common orientation due to the rigid body like rotation at the central region of the galaxy. The spatial configuration that furnishes the smallest angular momentum difference between the KDC and the host galaxy is completely defined by observed parameters in the plane of the sky, namely, the inclination of the inner and outer disks and the angle between the two lines of nodes. As an example we modeled the paradigmatic and extreme case of the 2D radial velocity field of NGC 4382 nucleus. Tilt angles of the KDC not larger than 30 degrees also allow explaining fast and low rotators of the called “Sauron paradigm” in a unified scenario. The maximum for the three parameters, namely, velocity of the inner rotator, difference of position angle and difference with the outer rotation velocity of the whole Sauron sample, are consistently correlated in agreement with the proposed scenario. These quantities do not correlate with the galaxies magnitude, mass (since large and dwarf spheroidals show apparent counterrotation as well) or environment, also suggesting that an internal phenomenon like the central spheroid warping, that we are here proposing, may be at work.

Spectral decomposition of the stellar kinematics in the polar disk galaxy NGC 4650A

Context. The prototype of Polar Ring Galaxies NGC 4650A contains two main structural components, a central spheroid, which is the host galaxy, and an extended polar disk. Both photometric and kinematic studies revealed that these two components co-exist on two different planes within the central regions of the galaxy. Aims. The aim of this work is to study the spectroscopic and kinematic properties of the host galaxy and the polar disk in the central regions of NGC 4650A by disentangling their contributions to the observed galaxy spectrum. Methods. We applied the spectral decomposition technique introduced in previous works to long-slit spectroscopic observations in the CaII triplet region. We focused the analysis along the PA = 152 that corresponds to the photometric minor axis of the host galaxy, where the superimposition of the two components is more relevant and the spectral decomposition is necessary. We aim to disentangle the stars that move in the equatorial plane of the host galaxy from those that move in the meridan plane, which is along the polar disk. Results. We successfully disentangled the spectra of the two structural components of NGC 4650A and measured their line-of-sight velocity and velocity dispersion profiles, and the stellar content along PA = 152. The host galaxy shows significant rotation along its photometric minor axis, indicating that the gravitational potential is not axisymmetric. The polar disk shows a kinematic decoupling: the inner regions counter-rotating with respect the outer-regions and the host spheroid. This suggests a complex formation history for the polar disk, characterised by mass accretion with decoupled angular momenta.

Morphology of galaxies with quiescent recent assembly history in a Λ-CDM universe

The standard disc formation scenario postulates that disc forms as the gas cools and flows into the centre of the dark matter halo, conserving the specific angular momentum. Major mergers have been shown to be able to destroy or highly perturb the disc components. More recently, the alignment of the material that is accreted to form the galaxy has been pointed out as a key ingredient to determine galaxy morphology. However, in a hierarchical scenario galaxy formation is a complex process that combines these processes and others in a non-linear way so that the origin of galaxy morphology remains to be fully understood. We aim at exploring the differences in the formation histories of galaxies with a variety of morphology, but quite recent merger histories, to identify which mechanisms are playing a major role. We analyse when minor mergers can be considered relevant to determine galaxy morphology. We also study the specific angular momentum content of the disc and central spheroidal components separately. We used cosmological hydrodynamical simulations that include an effective, physically motivated supernova feedback that is able to regulate the star formation in haloes of different masses. We analysed the morphology and formation history of a sample of 15 galaxies of a cosmological simulation. We performed a spheroid-disc decomposition of the selected galaxies and their progenitor systems. The angular momentum orientation of the merging systems as well as their relative masses were estimated to analyse the role played by orientation and by minor mergers in the determination of the morphology. We found the discs to be formed by conserving the specific angular momentum in accordance with the classical disc formation model. The specific angular momentum of the stellar central spheroid correlates with the dark matter halo angular momentum and determines a power law. Abridged

Chemical evolution in hierarchical scenarios

We studied the chemical properties of Milky-Way mass galaxies. We found common global chemical patterns with particularities which reflect their different assembly histories in a hierarchical scenario. We carried out a comprehensively analysis of the dynamical components (central spheroid, disc, inner and outer haloes) and their chemical properties.

CHEMICAL ABUNDANCES IN THE POLAR DISK OF NGC 4650A: IMPLICATIONS FOR COLD ACCRETION SCENARIO

The aim of the present study is to test whether the cold accretion of gas through a "cosmic filament" Macci\`o et al. 2006 is a possible formation scenario for the polar disk galaxy NGC 4650A. If polar disks form from cold accretion of gas, the abundances of the HII regions may be similar to those of very late-type spiral galaxies, regardless of the presence of a bright central stellar spheroid, with total luminosity of few 10^9 Lsun. We use deep long slit spectra obtained with the FORS2 spectrograph at the VLT in the optical and near-infrared wavelength ranges for the brightest HII regions in the disk polar disk of NGC 4650A. The strongest emission lines ([OII] Hbeta, [OIII], Halpha) were used to derived oxygen abundances, metallicities and the global star formation rates for the disk. The deep spectra available allowed us to measure the Oxygen abundances (12 + log (O/H)) using the "Empirical method" based on intensities of the strongest emission lines, and the "Direct method", based on the determination of the electron temperature from the detection of weak auroral lines, as the [OIII] at 4363 Angstrom. The Oxygen abundance measured for the polar disk is then compared with those measured for different galaxy types of similar total luminosities, and then compared against the predictions of different polar ring formation scenarios. The average metallicity values for the polar disk in NGC 4650A is Z=0.2 Zsun, and it is lower that the values measured for ordinary spirals of similar luminosity. Moreover the gradient of the metallicity is flat along the polar disk major axis, which implies none or negligible metal enrichment from the stars in the older central spheroid. The low metallicity value in the polar disk NGC 4650A and the flat metallicity gradient are both consistent with a later infall of metal-poor gas, as expected in the cold accretion processes.

The Stellar Population of the Galactic Bulge

AbstractThe Galactic bulge is the central spheroid of our Galaxy, containing about one quarter of the total stellar mass of the Milky Way (Mbulge = 1.8 × 1010M⊙; Sofue, Honma &amp; Omodaka 2009). Being older than the disk, it is the first massive component of the Galaxy to have collapsed into stars. Understanding its structure, and the properties of its stellar population, is therefore of great relevance for galaxy formation models. I will review our current knowledge of the bulge properties, with special emphasis on chemical abundances, recently measured for several hundred stars.

ON THE SURVIVAL AND ABUNDANCE OF DISK-DOMINATED GALAXIES

We study the formation of disk-dominated galaxies in a Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) universe. Their existence is considered to be a challenge for the ΛCDM cosmology, because galaxy mergers isotropize stellar disks and trigger angular momentum transport in gas disks, thus fostering the formation of central stellar spheroids. Here, we postulate that the formation of stellar spheroids from gas-rich disks is controlled by two parameters that characterize galaxy mergers, the mass ratio of merging dark matter halos, and the virial velocity of the larger merging halo. We utilize merger histories generated from realizations of the cosmological density field to calculate the fraction of dark matter halos that have avoided spheroid formation, and compare the derived statistics with the spheroid occupation fractions in surveys of nearby galaxies. We find, for example, that the survival rate of disk-dominated galaxies in ΛCDM is just high enough to explain the observed fractional representation of disk-dominated galaxies in the universe if the only mergers which lead to central spheroid formation are those with mass ratios M 2/M 1 > 0.3 and virial velocities V vir,1 > 55kms–1. We discuss the physical origin of this criterion.

Cold streams in early massive hot haloes as the main mode of galaxy formation

Massive galaxies in the young Universe, ten billion years ago, formed stars at surprising intensities. Although this is commonly attributed to violent mergers, the properties of many of these galaxies are incompatible with such events, showing gas-rich, clumpy, extended rotating disks not dominated by spheroids. Cosmological simulations and clustering theory are used to explore how these galaxies acquired their gas. Here we report that they are 'stream-fed galaxies', formed from steady, narrow, cold gas streams that penetrate the shock-heated media of massive dark matter haloes. A comparison with the observed abundance of star-forming galaxies implies that most of the input gas must rapidly convert to stars. One-third of the stream mass is in gas clumps leading to mergers of mass ratio greater than 1:10, and the rest is in smoother flows. With a merger duty cycle of 0.1, three-quarters of the galaxies forming stars at a given rate are fed by smooth streams. The rarer, submillimetre galaxies that form stars even more intensely are largely merger-induced starbursts. Unlike destructive mergers, the streams are likely to keep the rotating disk configuration intact, although turbulent and broken into giant star-forming clumps that merge into a central spheroid. This stream-driven scenario for the formation of discs and spheroids is an alternative to the merger picture.

Oxygen consumption rate and mitochondrial density in human melanoma monolayer cultures and multicellular spheroids

Rate of oxygen consumption per cell has been shown in previous studies to decrease with increasing depth in the viable rim of multicellular spheroids initiated from rodent cells, human colon-carcinoma cells, and human glioma cells, due to progressive accumulation of quiescent cells during spheroid growth. The purpose of our work was to determine oxygen-consumption profiles in human melanoma spheroids. Monolayer cultures of 4 lines (BEX-c, COX-c, SAX-c, and WIX-c) and spheroid cultures of 2 lines (BEX-c and WIX-c) were subjected to investigation. Spheroids were initiated from monolayer cell cultures and grown in spinner flasks. Rate of oxygen consumption was measured with a Clarke-type electrode. Mitochondrial density was determined by stereological analysis of transmission electron micrographs. Thickness of viable rim and cell packing density were assessed by light microscopy of central spheroid sections. Cell-cycle distribution was determined by analysis of DNA histograms measured by flow cytometry. Cell volume was measured by an electronic particle counter. Rate of oxygen consumption per cell differed by a factor of approximately 1.8 between the 4 cell lines and was positively correlated to total volume of mitochondria per cell. Rate of oxygen consumption per cell and total volume of mitochondria per cell were equal for monolayer cell cultures, 600-microns spheroids and 1,200-microns spheroids of the same line. Mitochondrial density and location in the cell did not differ between cells at the spheroid surface, in the middle of the viable rim and adjacent to the central necrosis. Cell-cycle distribution, cell volume, and cell-packing density in the outer and inner halves of the viable rim were not significantly different. Consequently, the rate of oxygen consumption per cell in inner regions of the viable rim was probably equal to that at the spheroid surface, suggesting that oxygen diffusion distances may be shorter in some melanomas than in many other tumor types.

Perturbation of homogeneous magnetic fields by isolated single and confocal spheroids. Implications for NMR spectroscopy of cells.

Analytical expressions for the magnetic potential and the magnetic field strength vector in cells modelled as isolated confocal prolate and oblate spheroids have been derived. The important results which emerged from the analysis are that the magnetic field in the central spheroid, in a series of confocal spheroids, is always uniform; but its magnitude depends upon the orientation of the spheroids relative to the external field. Therefore, the NMR line-shape derived from an internal solute in a population of sparsely distributed spheroids, with random orientation of the members, is a superposition of Lorentzians; the resulting 'complicated' line shape may often appear to be Gaussian. This spectral phenomenon is at least part of the explanation for the non-Lorentzian character of NMR line-shapes in the spectra of many biological samples. Quantitative analysis of the NMR line-shape of an appropriate intracellular solute can in principal yield the orientational distribution of a dilute suspension of cells of uniform size and shape.