Morphofunctional Characteristics of Primary Culture of Rat Pancreatic Stellate Cells in the Dynamics of Short-Term Culture

Morphometric and immunocytochemical characteristics of pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs) from healthy animals were examined on days 2, 3, and 4 in culture. The following morphometric parameters were determined: the area of cells, cytoplasm and nuclei, as well as the nuclear-cytoplasmic ratio (NCR). Cells were identified by the presence of cytoplasmic lipid droplets, GFAP and α-SMA immunostaining. It has been found that all cells contain lipid droplets and GFAP protein, which indicates the homogeneity of the culture. Some features of PSCs activation were registered already on the second day of culture, which was confirmed by the presence of α-SMA protein in the cytoplasm, while decreased proportion of lipid droplets and increased area of nuclei and cytoplasm was noted only on the fourth day of the study. The revealed features of the PSC primary culture obtained from healthy animals by the explant method should be taken into account in further studies to objectively assess the contribution of various pathological factors to the PSCs activation when studying pancreatic diseases.