Summary
The columnar epithelial cells of the intestine in goldfish and rainbow trout were studied by electron microscopy. The most striking feature of the columnar cells, which was common in both fishes, was the extensive formation of lamellar structures in the cytoplasm. These were actually ribbon-like sheets which were bounded by two regular parallel membranes, and were found mainly in the basal half of the cytoplasm. In profile, these lamellar sheets were similar to the basal infoldings in the distal convoluted tubules of kidney, but were independent of the basal plasma membrane. The function of these lamellae is not known; however, these are presumably the structure involved in transport of water or nutrients. The remarkable difference between the goldfish and trout intestine was the occurrence of the invaginations of luminal surface between microvilli, and a variety of vesicles and vacuoles in the apical cytoplasm, observed exclusively in the posterior intestine of goldfish. In the present paper, it is suggested that there are differences in kind or degree of absorption between the goldfish and the rainbow trout, probably between stomachless fish and stomach-possessing fish in general, and that in the former food materials are ingested into the cell of posterior intestine by vigorous pinocytosis.
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The author wishes to express his appreciation to Drs. H. Stanley Bennett and Newton B. Everett for providing the opportunity for this study, and giving encouragement; he further wishes to acknowledge the generous support and invaluable advice of Dr. John H. Luft during the course of this study and the preparation of manuscript. Thanks are also extended to Dr. Richard L. Wood for his valuable suggestion and criticism. He is also indebted to Dr. L. R. Donaldson of the Fisheries Center, University of Washington for kindly providing the materials employed in this study.
This work was supported by grants H-2698 and GM-139 from the United States Public Health Service.
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Yamamoto, T. An electron microscope study of the columnar epithelial cell in the intestine of fresh water teleosts: Goldfish (Carassius a uratus) and rainbow trout (Salmo irideus). Zeitschrift für Zellforschung 72, 66–87 (1966). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00336898
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00336898