LETTER TO THE EDITOR |
Recent advocacy of the term "radioautography" (
Etymological arguments have been made for "autoradiography" to designate the methodology and "autoradiogram" to designate the pictorial record. Since the Greek word "auto" acts as a prefix, it is usually not found in the middle of a word. In addition, the process does not produce an "autograph" but rather a "radiograph," as a form of "self-ray writing." An additional argument against "radioautography" is constituted by the four vowelsi,o,a,u,
occurring together; because of possible enunciation and phonetic difficulties this should be avoided (
Discussions in the literature give the impression that neither of the two Latin-Greek or Greek-Latin-Greek hybrids, "radioautography" and "autoradiography," satisfies all aspects of terminology regarding purist linguistic demands and concise designation of the various applications. Continued disputes about semantics, therefore, are likely to remain unproductive. To avoid confusion, however, it would be prudent to settle for one term. The points made above support the recent decision by the editor of the Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry to favor the term "autoradiography" for techniques that utilize radioactive label in conjunction with sensitive detection media to obtain function- and time-related topographical information. "Autoradiography" designates a variety of histochemical techniques that are well-suited for the localization, characterization, and quantification of bioactive substances in specific tissues and cells (e.g.,
Literature Cited
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Joftes DL, Warren S (1956) Terminology. Science 124:1155-1156
Nagata T (1996) On the terminology of radioautography vs autoradiography. J Histochem Cytochem 44:1209[Medline]
Preuss LE (1957) Autoradiography: terminology and definition. Science 126:369-370
Stumpf WE (1995) Vitamin D sites and mechanisms of action: a histochemical perspective. Reflections on the utility of autoradiography and cytopharmacology for drug targeting. Histochem Cell Biol 104:417-427[Medline]
Stumpf WE, Solomon HF, eds (1995) Autoradiography and Correlative Imaging. San Diego, Academic Press
Tauxe WN, Moser AH, Boyd GA (1954) Etymology of autoradiography. Science 120:149-150