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Regional differences in the ultrastructure of mucosal macrophages in the rat large intestine

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Abstract

We previously clarified the histological characteristics of macrophages in the rat small intestine using serial block-face scanning electron microscopy (SBF-SEM). However, the regional differences in the characteristics of macrophages throughout the large intestine remain unknown. Here, we performed a pilot study to explore the regional differences in the ultrastructure of mucosal macrophages in the large intestine by using SBF-SEM analysis. SBF-SEM analysis conducted on the luminal side of the cecum and descending colon revealed macrophages as amorphous cells possessing abundant lysosomes and vacuoles. Macrophages in the cecum exhibited a higher abundance of lysosomes and a lower abundance of vacuoles than those in the descending colon. Macrophages with many intraepithelial cellular processes were observed beneath the intestinal superficial epithelium in the descending colon. Moreover, macrophages in contact with nerve fibers were more prevalent in the cecum than in the descending colon, and a subset of them surrounded a nerve bundle only in the cecum. In conclusion, the present pilot study suggested that the quantity of some organelles (lysosomes and vacuoles) in macrophages differed between the cecum and the descending colon and that there were some region-specific subsets of macrophages like nerve-associated macrophages in the cecum.

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Data availability

The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the JSPS KAKENHI grants (16K18813, 20K15902, and JP16H06280), by the Cooperative Study Program (20-229) of National Institute for Physiological Sciences, and by the Foundation of Kinoshita Memorial Enterprise.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Histophysiology, Department of Bioresource Science, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Kobe University, 1-1 Rokkodai-Cho, Nada-Ku, Kobe, Hyogo, 657-8501, Japan

    Shota Murase, Youhei Mantani, Asaka Shimada, Satoki Nakanishi & Rinako Morishita

  2. Laboratory of Animal Molecular Morphology, Department of Bioresource Science, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Kobe University, 1-1 Rokkodai-Cho, Nada-Ku, Kobe, Hyogo, 657-8501, Japan

    Toshifumi Yokoyama & Nobuhiko Hoshi

  3. Department of Anatomy, Division of Histology and Cell Biology, Jichi Medical University, School of Medicine, Shimotsuke, Tochigi, 329-0498, Japan

    Nobuhiko Ohno

  4. Division of Ultrastructural Research, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Aichi, 444-8787, Japan

    Nobuhiko Ohno

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  1. Shota Murase
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  2. Youhei Mantani
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  3. Nobuhiko Ohno
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  4. Asaka Shimada
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  5. Satoki Nakanishi
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  6. Rinako Morishita
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  7. Toshifumi Yokoyama
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  8. Nobuhiko Hoshi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Youhei Mantani.

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Research involving animals

This study was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (permission number 30-05-01). All procedures in studies involving animals were performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution (the Kobe University Animal Experimentation Regulations) or at the practice at which the studies were conducted.

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Murase, S., Mantani, Y., Ohno, N. et al. Regional differences in the ultrastructure of mucosal macrophages in the rat large intestine. Cell Tissue Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00441-024-03883-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00441-024-03883-w

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