Nucleolar organizer regions of lymphomas in Korea.

Author: Insun KIM ¹ ; Sung Hye PARK ; Seung Yong PAIK
Author Information

1. Department of Pathology, Korea University Hospital, Korea.
Publication Type:Original Article
Keywords: Nucleolar organizer regions (NORs); Silver stain; Malignant lymphomas
MeSH: Histological Techniques; Humans; Korea; Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin/ethnology/*pathology; Nucleolus Organizer Region/*pathology; *Silver; *Staining and Labeling
From:Journal of Korean Medical Science 1988;3(3):99-105
CountryRepublic of Korea
Language:English
Abstract: Nucleolar organizer regions (NORs) are loops of DNA which occur in the nucleoli of cells and which possess ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes. The numbers and/or configurations of NORs have been thought to be related to cellular activities. To assess the applicability of NORs associated protein (Ag-NORs) in the field of diagnostic histopathology, a silver staining was done in paraffin sections of malignant lymphomas, tonsils and reactive lymph nodes and the numbers of Ag-NORs in the nuclei of low-grade and those of high-grade lymphomas were compared. A significant difference was found between the numbers of Ag-NORs in the nuclei of low-grade lymphoma (a mean of 1.3 per nucleus) and those of high-grade lymphomas (a mean of 4.2 to 8.3 per nucleus). The Ag-NORs were often observed in nuclei in areas where nucleoli themselves were not visible in H and E stain. It is suggested that this method would be of great value in the field of tumor histopathology.