Cell block as a new method for studying the cellular composition of the mammary gland secretion

Abstract

One of the urgent problems of modern highly productive dairy cattle breeding is the problem of the mass manifestation of the pathology of the reproductive organs in cows, which entails a decrease in the potential of their fertility and milk productivity. The article presents data on the characteristics of the milk cell pool in cows with various forms of mastitis, as well as with the normal functioning of the mammary gland. For the study in lactating cows (n = 20) with a confirmed diagnosis of subclinical (n = 8) and clinically expressed mastitis (n = 8), as well as in healthy animals (n = 6), the secret of the mammary gland was taken for histological studies. In modern science, the technique of cell blocks is gaining popularity. With its help, it is possible to study biological fluids in more detail, if necessary, to conduct additional histochemical studies. This technique is used quite rarely, as it is quite labor-intensive, but despite this it is of great value in studying the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases of the mammary gland. It has been shown that in healthy cows a small number of cells are visualized in preparations, among which leukocytes make up about 50%. In the subclinical form, neutrophils accounted for 70% of the cell pool, while some of them had vacuolated cytoplasm. In the preparations of cell blocks of milk with clinical mastitis, neutrophils occupied almost the entire area of the preparation, while in addition to vacuolization, hypersegmentation of the nucleus, karyopyknosis and karyorrhexis were noted. The conducted studies have shown that this method is promising in the study of the pathogenesis of breast diseases.