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Degranulation of the rat peritoneal mast cell induced by intraperitoneal injection of horseradish peroxidase(HRP) was studied using light and electron microscopes. 1. Rat peritoneal mast cells in the Tyrode’s buffered salt solution injected control group did not show any particular morphological changes following the specified time course. 2. Under the light microscope, the majority of mast cells observed 10 minutes after HRP injection were nearly the same as those of the control group. However, after 30 minutes, granule densities or staining properties of certain cells began to decrease and these appearances increased gradually until 12 hours after injection, at which time small groups of granules being stained pale-red or pink with toluidine blue were easily identified in the cytoplasm of many cells, and numerous extruded granuleg were scattered around these cells. 3. In the mast cells representing the early stage of degranulation induced by HRP, the electron densities of certain granules decreased as the size enlarged, and perigranular cavities were formed by perigranular membrane expansion. As a result, a thin cytoplasmic septum was formed between the expanded perigranular membrane and the cytoplasmic membrane in the cell periphery, and fusion of the adjacent perigranular membranes was observed in the inner side of the cell. 4. In some mast cells, one or two changes in the peripheral cytoplasmic septum could be seen. One was a focal rupture of the peripheral septum and the other was the formation of a saccule containing one or more vesicles. This saccule was thought to be used for granule-extrusion site and/or material absorptive apparatus judging from the morphological characteristics. 5. As the degranulation proceeded, the granule was extruded from the cell after partial rupture of the peripheral cytoplasmic septum. This phenomenon proceeded to-ward the inner side of the cell through the fused perigranular cavities, and consequently several distinct cavities containing a few unextruded membrane-free granules were formed throughout the cytoplasm after 12 hours. As a rule, the granule-extrusion sites were relatively fewer while the cytoplasmic cavities resulting from degranulation were more numerously observed. Thus, it was thought that the granule-extrusion sites tended to be restricted in the HRP-induced degranulation.
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