Return to search

Fine structural analysis of the intact adrenal cortex and of regenerating intramuscular adrenocortical transplants in the rat

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / Several investigators have reported on the fine structure of the normal adrenal gland of the rat using electron microscopy, and many have described the changes which occur during the processes of regeneration of both enucleated and transplanted adrenal glands, using a variety of histochemical techniques for subsequent analysis by optical microscopy. Since the larger inclusions, such as intracellular lipid droplets, have been followed through the stages of regeneration (Brenner, et al, 1953), an attempt was made in this investigation to analyze the changes in cytoplasmic organelles during the process of regeneration, utilizing the electron microscope, and to correlate the observations with those of the regenerating adrenal gland that have been reported using optical microscopy.
Experimental Procedure
Male albino rats of the Wistar strain, weighing between ninety-five and one hundred fifty grams were bilaterally adrenalectomized by the dorsal approach under ether anesthesia. The right adrenal glands were either used for control purposes or discarded. The left adrenal gland was bisected and autotransplanted into pockets made in the dorsal musculature. All animals were given Purina Laboratory Chow ad libitum and a one percent saline drinking water for a period of seven days post-operatively, after which tap water was given. These animals were sacrificed and their transplants removed after two, four, seven, fourteen, twenty-one, and sixty days of regeneration. Tissue specimens of one cubic millimeter size were fixed for two hours in cold one percent osmium tetroxide buffered to pH 7.2 with veronal-acetate buffer, after which they were dehydrated and embedded in either methacrylate monomers or epoxy resin. After curing the plastic in an oven, sections of three hundred to eight hundred Angstrom units thickness were cut on a Porter-Blum microtome, placed on carbon coated copper grids, which has previously been covered with a thin layer of Formvar, and observed in an RCA EMU Microscope, Model 3B, at fifty kilovolts. Normal control animals were sacrificed and their left adrenals processed in the same manner as above [TRUNCATED]

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/28121
Date January 1962
CreatorsPenney, David Paul
PublisherBoston University
Source SetsBoston University
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis/Dissertation
RightsBased on investigation of the BU Libraries' staff, this work is free of known copyright restrictions.

Page generated in 0.0023 seconds