Electron microscopy of the leucocytes of the typhlosole in ammocoetes, with special attention to the antibody-producing cells

Abstract

In an attempt to determine the role in the immune responses of the typhlosole, a hematopoietic tissue along the ventral wall of the larval lamprey Lampetra reissneri, scanning and transmission electron microscopic observations were made on ammocoetes hyperimmunized with sheep red blood cells. Besides including the cells of the erythrocyte series, this tissue also contained the following leucocytes forming an amorphous parenchyma: the cells of the granulocyte series, the most predominant cell type, possessing a markedly lobed nucleus and membrane-bounded granules of various sizes; the macrophages possessing primary and secondary lysosomes and long lamellipodia on the cell surface; the lymphocytes of a large nucleocytoplasmic ratio with a number of long, spiky microvilli, constituting a major type of rosette-forming (antigen-binding) cells; and the plasma cells possessing highly extended cisternae of rough endoplasmic reticula that are characteristic of the higher vertebrates. The immunoperoxidase technique, which employs rabbit antibodies against lamprey immunoglobulin, proved that these plasma cells do contain immunoglobulin. These results strongly indicate that the typhlosole of the larval lamprey, besides functioning as a hematopoietic tissue, is actively involved in the antibody responses. It is also stressed that the plasma cell occurs in the most primitive vertebrates as an immunologically competent cell.