Ultrastructure of a Mobile Threadlike Tissue Floating in a Lymph Vessel

Figure 3

Cross-sectional images of a PV in the harvested lymph duct. (a) A cross section of the lymph duct (LV) with a blue stained PV in it. This specimen was frozen in OCT and the image was taken with a phase contrast microscope. This part of the lymph duct contained the PV without surrounding lymphocytes. (b) The semithin section of the toluidine blue stained lymph duct which were full of lymphocytes. The PV was located below from the center of the lymph duct and it was somewhat light blue colored because of the Alcian blue. This image helped us to find the PV among the lymphocytes. This semithin image is necessary for pointing the precise location of the PV, which is in turn helpful to apply TEM study. (c) The mosaic of the TEM images of the lymph duct which was full of lymphocytes. The location of the PV was identified with the aid of the above toluidine image. The PV showed the loose distribution of collagen fibers. (d) The boxed region of (c) is magnified to show the details of the PV. Two endothelial cell nuclei (EN) are seen along the lumens (L) which are different from the nuclei of the surrounding lymphocytes (LC). The collagen fibers (F) are extracellular material filling most of the PV. (e) A lymph vessel in which a PV was found without surrounding lymphocytes. The PV has similar distribution of fibers and lumens as (d).

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