Glomerular epithelial foot processes in normal man and rats. Distribution of true width and its intra- and inter-individual variation.
The width of individual glomerular epithelial foot processes appears very different on electron micrographs. A method for obtainining distributions of the true width of foot processes from that of their apparent width on electron micrographs has been developed based on geometric probability theory pertaining to a specific geometric model. Analyses of foot process width in humans and rats show a remarkable interindividual invariance implying rigid control and therefore great biological significance of foot process width or a derivative thereof. The very low inter-individual variation of the true width, shown in the present paper, makes it possible to demonstrate slight changes in rather small groups of patients or experimental animals.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D002648:Child; D004848:Epithelium / Q000648:ultrastructure; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007678:Kidney Glomerulus / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D008297:Male; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D011336:Probability; D051381:Rats; D013223:Statistics as Topic