PRENATAL CHANGES IN EPITHELIUM OF SMALL INTESTINE OF RAT FTUS PINEALECTOMIZED IN UTERO

¹ Institute of Anatomy, University of Lund, Sweden

The pineal gland of rat ftuses aged 15-17 days post coitum was destroyed by electrocoagulation, either selectively or with inadvertent lesion of some contiguous structures. The ftuses were killed at 21-22 days post coitum. Histological and histochemical investigations were made on eighteen ftuses in which the pineal gland was found to be totally destroyed, on twenty ftuses in which it was subtotally (39-98 per cent) destroyed, and on fourteen ftuses in which it was found to be intact (sham-operated controls). For comparison, forty-nine unoperated controls were studied.

In the pinealectomized groups, whether contiguous structures had been injured or not, marked changes regularly occurred in the lower ileum, the epithelial cells being filled with distinct, homogeneous and smooth acidophilic inclusions 3-7 µ in diameter, most globules, however, measuring 15 x 15 µ. The changes differed significantly from the discrete, small (less than 1—4 µ) inclusions found in the corresponding parts of the small intestine of unoperated and sham-operated controls. Substances with the same histological and histochemical properties were also found within the intestinal lumen and in the intravillous lacteals. The material, which is PAS-positive, probably consists muco- or glycoproteins, which may have been absorbed from the intestinal lumen.