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Ultrastructural identification of non-adrenergic, non-cholinergic nerves in the rat anococcygeus muscle

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Summary

The innervation of the rat anococcygeus muscle has been investigated ultrastructurally following fixation with a modified chromaffin reaction for the demonstration of biogenic amines (Tranzer and Richards, 1976). Three types of nerve profiles were revealed: (1) 60–70 % of the profiles are adrenergic; (2) less than 5% of the profiles appear to be cholinergic; (3) up to 40% of the profiles are distinguished by the presence of a characteristically high proportion of electron-opaque, chromaffin-negative vesicles, 85–110nm in diameter. This third type of profile was not affected by 6-OHDA, and is considered to represent the non-adrenergic, non-cholinergic inhibitory innervation of this tissue. Because of the morphological similarity of this nerve type, apart from the smaller vesicle size, to classical peptidergic nerve endings, they have been termed “small p-type” (sp-type). These results are discussed in relation to a previous report describing only two types of nerve profiles in this tissue (Gillespie and Lüllmann-Rauch, 1974).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Zoology, University of Melbourne, Parkville, 3052, Victoria, Australia

    I. L. Gibbins & C. J. Haller

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  1. I. L. Gibbins
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  2. C. J. Haller
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This work was supported in part by a grant from the Australian Research Grants Committee. The authors wish to thank Professor G. Campbell and Dr. D.C. Rogers for helpful criticism of the manuscript

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Gibbins, I.L., Haller, C.J. Ultrastructural identification of non-adrenergic, non-cholinergic nerves in the rat anococcygeus muscle. Cell Tissue Res. 200, 257–271 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00236418

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