Not as a routine method.  The field is still finding itself.  I
responded immediately, but I put my elegant prose aside for the moment.  I
have been down the road you are on, and I, YEARS EARLIER, sidestepped it by
gathering all the methods that would comprise such an "assay".  The cost was
prodigious, so we concentrated, at THAT time, on TUNEL, which has a place,
but is NOT nearly reliable enough to serve as an assay.
	Here's a position.  If you could follow the metamorphosis of a Rana
pipiens tadpole using mid-sagittal sections of the earliest stages and
demonstrate all of the apoptotic events that have been recorded in studies
of the cascade of morphic events.  With an approach that would show them
all, you would have an assay for apoptosis.  Otherwise, one is always in
never-never land.  
	I view apoptosis as a condition of a cell, not as a marker for that
cell.  The markers for a cell type are complex and not uniform from cell to
cell.  Many of the signal transductions that 'mark' apoptosis are different
only because they move to an unregulated endpoint.
	If I were looking now, I would carefully seek out those few unique
markers that might form a real diagnostic for apoptotic cells and I would
learn how to do PCR in situ hybridization to investigate apoptotic systems
with an eye toward defining a REAL, universal assay.  Further, PCR has the
advantage of holding a promise of quantifiability.
	My observation derives from long experience with those who think
what we do is easy.  "Seeing" with a microscope is NOT a trivial pursuit.  I
suppose that why microscopes are so expensive and we are so cheap.  Anybody
can do it, but not without the proper instrument.

Have a nice weekend,

Fred Monson

Frederick C. Monson, PhD
The best research
Center for Advanced Scientific Imaging
occurs before work
West Chester University
at the bench.
West Chester, Pennsylvania, USA, 19383
610-738-0437
fmonson@wcupa.edu

	 

> ----------
> From: 	ajennings@unmc.edu
> Sent: 	Thursday, February 21, 2002 4:49 PM
> To: 	histology
> Subject: 	Vendors apoptosis
> 
> OK I am open to all input no matter what your standpoint.  I have hoards
> of
> people waiting in the wings to purchase kits that work. Pour it on. Doesnt
> anyone do apoptosis anymore?
> anita
> 
> 
>