The ultrastructure of liver cells of some herbivorous animals

Abstract

It is shown that hepatocytes of grass carp and silver carp contain much glycogen, but have very few cistemae of agranular endoplasmic reticulum. The cytoplasm of chicken and pigeon hepatocytes contains glycogen, lipid droplets, as well as a fair amount of granular and agranular endoplasmic reticulum. Agranular endoplasmic reticulum predominates in hepatocytes of herbivorous mammals (sea cow, muskrat, musk deer, bison, and elk) and the cells contain various kinds of inclusions as well. Key Words: hepatocyte; ultrastructure; herbivoresThere are few reports dealing with the ultrastructure of liver cells in herbivorous animals [1,2,9,[11][12][13].The aim of the present investigation was to study the ultrastructure of liver cells of some herbivores and to identify features of similarity and difference among them. MATERIALS AND METHODSThe ultrastructure of liver cells was studied in fed and fasting mature grass carp, silver carp, chicken, pigeon, sea cow, muskrat, musk deer, elk, and bison. Fixation was performed with 2.5% glutaraldehyde on S-collidine buffer at pH 7.2-7.4 followed by additional fixation with osmium tetroxide on the same buffer. The samples were embedded in Epon. Ultrathin sections were stained after Reynolds and examined with a JEM-100C electron microscope. RESULTSHepatocytes in algivorous mature grass carp and silver carp contain predorninately one nucleus with