Scanning electron microscope study of the splenic red pulp in relation to the sequestration of immature and abnormal red cells

✍ Scribed by S. H. Song; A. C. Groom

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1974
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 909 KB
• Volume: 144
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0362-2525
• DOI: 10.1002/jmor.1051440405

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Spleens from normal, healthy cats, dogs and rabbits were perfused with Ringer solution until only a few red cells remained. After fixation of the intact organ, small pieces of tissue were dried by a camphene method and examined under the scanning electron microscope. In all three species the red cells remaining in the spleen were either reticulocytes, spiculated cells, or cells of tear‐drop shape and they were found adhering to macrophages and reticulum cells throughout the red pulp. Elongated masses were found on the sinusal surface of fenestrated endothelium (only in dog and rabbit); some of these appeared to be cells of tear‐drop shape emerging from the cords into the sinus. This may perhaps denote a pitting process, as suggested by others, but it cannot be a unique function of fenestrated endothelium for red cells of similar shape were found elsewhere in the pulp. In all three species the network of reticulum fibres presents a very large contact surface area for blood cells and it seems likely that increased cell stickiness, rather than decreased deformability, leads to the trapping of immature red cells in the spleen.