Analysis of skin fibroblast aggregation in Duchenne muscular dystrophy

Skin fibroblasts from patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy have a low intercellular adhesiveness compared with normal cells when aggregated in a Couette viscometer (collision efficiencies of 2.52 and 4.62, respectively). The pattern of aggregation was quantitated using a digitizer system to measure the areas of particles (single cells and aggregates) formed after 20 min aggregation. This size analysis showed that the majority of dystrophic cells remained unaggregated but that a small number of very large aggregates was always formed. Normal cell suspensions only rarely contained large aggregates but contained many intermediate-size aggregates. These differences in intercellular adhesiveness and aggregate pattern formation indicate that there may be an alteration in the surface of dystrophic cells.