Scanning electron microscopy of the architecture of loose connective tissue during adult life, wound healing and normal development

ABSTRACT

The natural architecture and surface ultrastructure of the various constituents of loose connective tissue in the ventral abdominal walls of 72 albino rat were examined by utilizing the scanning electron and light microscope. The stereoscopic picture of the normal adult loose connective tissue was compared with that of the loose regenerative tissue in experimental wounds during various stages of healing and with that of the loose developing tissue in the aponeuroses during various stages of normal growth. The fiber architecture, thickness and density had a peculiar picture in normal adult tissue, but during wound healing and normal development the picture was almost identical. In each tissue a general direction of fiber orientation could always be detected. The surface ultrastructure of fat and inflammatory cells was also visualized. Fibrillogenesis as polymerization of fibrils from rounded [probably tropocollagen full] vesicles was constantly seen during regeneration and development