An Immunohistochemical and Histochemical Study on AutonomicInnervation of the Gall Bladder and Bile Ducts in Cats / 第三军医大学学报

ABSTRACT

This paper is to report the autonomic innervation of the gall bladder and extrahepatic bile ducts studied on whole mount stretch preparations and cryostat sections with acetylcholinesterase staining, glyoxylic acid induced fluorescence histochemical method, and PAP immunohistochemical method.The autonomic nerves of the gall bladder and extrahepatic bile dudts in cats consist of two plexuses, composed of cholinergic, adrenergic and peptidergic nerves, and situated in the subserosa and submucosa respectively. They are known as subserosal and submucosal ganglionated plexuses. They distribute in the region from the fundus of the bladder, to the neck and the cystic duct, through the common bile duct downward, finally to the duodenal papilla.The adrenergic nerves mainly run along the, blood vessels, distributing in the serosa and lamina propria of the mucosa of the bladder, and participating in the formation of the subepithelial and perivasctilar plexuses. The adrenergic nerves are most densely distributed in the cystic duct and mosl sparsely in the fundus. This finding is in good agreement with the tissue concentration of noradrenaline(NA) determined with biochemical asssay, which is also the highest in the tissue of the cystic duct. The difference of NA concentration between the cystic duct tissue and other biliary tissues was statistically Gignificant(P0.05).Immunohistochemical study revealed that there are 4 kinds of immunoactivc peptidergic nerves, i. e. nerves with vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP), substance P(SP), L-enkephalin (L-ENK), and somatostatin (SOM) respectively. The 4 kinds of nerves distribute extensively in all the tissue layers of the ex-trahepatic biliary tract and participate in the formation of all the nerve plexuses. Among them, VIP nerves are the richest, then the SP and L-ENK nerves, and the SOM nerves the sparsest. In general, peptidergic nerves are densely distributed in the sphincter of Oddi.Finally the physiological significance of the peptidergic nerves was discussed.