Abstract
We investigated the three-dimensional architectures of P2X2-/P2X3-immunoreactive nerve terminals in the rat carotid body using immunohistochemistry with confocal laser microscopy. Nerve endings immunoreactive for P2X2 and P2X3 were associated with clusters of type I cells, whereas some nerve endings were sparsely distributed in a few clusters. Most nerve endings surrounding type I cells were hederiform in shape and extended several flattened axon terminals, which were polygonal or pleomorphic in shape and contained P2X2-/P2X3-immunoreactive products. Three-dimensional reconstruction views revealed that some flattened nerve endings with P2X3 immunoreactivity formed arborized, sac- or goblet-like terminal structures and were attached to type I cells immunoreactive for tyrosine hydroxylase (TH). However, P2X3-immunoreactive axon terminals were sparsely distributed in type I cells immunoreactive for dopamine beta-hydroxylase. Multi-immunolabeling for P2X2, S100, and TH revealed that P2X2-immunoreactive axon terminals were attached to TH-immunoreactive type I cells on the inside of type II cells with S100 immunoreactivity. These results revealed the detailed morphology of P2X2-/P2X3-immunoreactive nerve terminals and suggest that sensory nerve endings may integrate chemosensory signals from clustered type I cells with their variform nerve terminals.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Grants-in-Aid from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science to TK (25350823) and TY (16K21306) and Grants-in-Aid for Strategic Medical Science Research (S1491001, 2014-2018) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.
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Yokoyama, T., Saino, T., Nakamuta, N. et al. Three-dimensional architectures of P2X2-/P2X3-immunoreactive afferent nerve terminals in the rat carotid body as revealed by confocal laser scanning microscopy. Histochem Cell Biol 146, 479–488 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00418-016-1458-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00418-016-1458-z