Summary
5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT, serotonin)- and opsin-immunoreactive sites were studied in the developing pineal complex of the stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus L., by use of light-microscopic indirect immunoperoxidase techniques.
5-HT immunoreactivity first occurs in the pineal organ at the age of 80 h after fertilization and appears to be localized in cells of the photoreceptor type. The outer segments of a few pineal photosensory cells exhibit opsin immunoreactivity at the age of 84 h after fertilization. The number of cells seems to increase until the pineal organ is completely developed. The increase in the number of 5-HT immunoreactive perikarya runs parallel in time to that of the opsinimmunoreactive outer segments. The cells of the parapineal organ show neither opsin nor 5-HT immunoreactivity. The retina of the embryonic stickleback does not display opsin immunoreactivity until after hatching, which takes place about 144 h after fertilization.
These results suggest, in the three-spined stickleback, an earlier light-perception capacity for the developing pineal organ than for the retina.
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The authors are indebted to Mrs. Rita Wallén and Miss Lina Hansen for technical assistance, and to Miss Inger Norling for preparing the photographs
This study was supported by grants from the Swedish Natural Science Research Council (4644-105) and the Royal Physiographical Society of Lund
Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Bonn, Federal Republic of Germany
On leave of absence from the 2nd Department of Anatomy, Semmelweis University Medical School, H-1094 Budapest, Hungary.
Support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft is gratefully acknowledged.
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van Veen, T., Ekström, P., Nyberg, L. et al. Serotonin and opsin immunoreactivities in the developing pineal organ of the three-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus L.. Cell Tissue Res. 237, 559–564 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00228440
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00228440