Quantifying Oxidative Stress in Liver Sections

The percentage of surface occupied by cells displaying an oxidative stress was evaluated on liver sections by immunohistochemistry using an anti-4 hydroxynonenal (4-HNE) antibody. For each liver slide, the area occupied by (4-HNE) positive cells was quantified by morphometric analysis at 400x magnification. The procedure utilized software designed for morphometry and colour analysis (KS 400 Imaging system, Carl Zeiss Vision GmbH, München, Germany) [22 (link)]. This computer-assisted morphometric system was able to analyse immunocytochemical staining on the basis of difference of colour and contrast. For each histological section of liver, 5 microscopic fields were picked at random representing a total scanned area of 1.8 mm². Results were expressed as mean percentage of immunoreactive area ± SD and the values were presented in Table 2.