Research Article

Characterization of autofluorescence in normal and necrosed muscles in chickens

Mohamed Kamal; EL-Shaymaa EL-Nahass; Khalid A. El-Nesr; Adel A. Shalaby
Department of Pathology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Beni-Suef University, Beni-Suef 62511, Egyp

Abstract

The histopathological diagnosis of muscle necrosis and hyalinosis frequently poses considerable difficulty and has a contradictory diagnosis. The present study described the morphologic features of nine clinically affected chicken pectoral muscles and one normal muscle using fluorescence microscopy on formalin fixed-paraffin embedded tissues. Histopathological examination of samples (normal and necrosed) was routinely done using stained sections with heamatoxylin and eosin. Sections examined by fluorescent microscopy showed significant or intense autoflouresncence in necrosed muscles. The subsequent image/color analysis of the fluorescent images was carried out to characterize the color intensity of autofluorescence emitted from chickens' muscles and to compare autoflourescence with the normal ones. In necrosed muscles, samples exhibited a marked increase in fluorescence intensity. Normally stained section with non-specific autoflourescent revealed 99.48% for normal specimens compared to 82.93% for necrosed ones, and that of specific autoflourscent revealed 0.62% for normal specimens compared to 17.08% for necrosed ones. The technique allows imaging of chickens muscle samples, facilitating the determination of the degree of necrosis throughout the muscle using statistical analysis, particularly in those related to comparative pathology, and avoiding the disadvantages of routine histopathological examination.

Keywords

autofluorescence, necrosed muscles, image analysis, HE