International Journal of Cell Cloning, Vol 8, 307-315, Copyright © 1990 by AlphaMed Press
Megakaryocyte polyploidy as a grouped geometric distribution obeying the log-normal population law
WE von Behrens
Biometrology, San Francisco, California.
Discrete nuclear lobe scores and flow- or image-cytometry DNA values of
classically identified megakaryocytes behave as a grouped geometric
distribution. This model is fully specified by a geometric mean and
standard deviation (GM and GSD), the latter typically being ca 1.16 for
volumes of diploid blood cell populations. Via log-normal probability
paper, the 30 to 50 megakaryocytes in clinical marrow smears readily yield
the ploidy model's GM and GSD which are named MPM and MPD for megakaryocyte
polyploidy median and dispersion. In euthrombopoietic outbred mammals, MPMs
are ca 12N ploidy units, and MPDs approximate a factor of 1.41. Both are
unitless criteria. Thus, the thrombon is characterized by three populations
exhibiting the high size dispersion which unmasks canonical operation of
the log-normal population law: picoliter megakaryothrombocytes with their
MPD ca 1.41, femtoliter thrombocytes with a volume GSD ca 1.74, and the end
product of locally delivered pieces of subattoliter platelet dust with a
volume GSD ca. 2.0.
