The passage of exogenous peroxidase from blood capillaries into the intestinal epithelium

Abstract
Horseradish peroxidase was injected into the spleens of mice and the animals were sacrificed ten minutes after injection. The tissues were reacted with 3‐3′ diaminobenzidine hydrochloride and the distribution of the reaction product was studied with both the light and electron microscope. The peroxidase was localized between epithelial cells up to the region of the tight junction and within vacuoles in the absorptive cells Granules ranging in size from ca. 40A to 600A were observed in the cytoplasm of epithelial cells in numbers far in excess of that found in control specimens. It appeared that the diffuse light brown staining observed in epithelial cells with the light microscope could be attributed to large numbers of granules of reaction product free in the cytoplasm. When corn oil was given by stomach tube and an intravascular injection of perioxidase was given ten minutes later, absorbed lipid was found to pass from interepithelial cell spaces to lamina propria at the same time that peroxidase was traversing the same compartments in the reverse direction. Hence, it was shown that exogenous peroxidase and probably other substances of vascular origin required for the metabolism of epithelial cells are exposed to both the basal and lateral epithelial cell membranes, even when absorbed lipid is traversing the same spaces in the opposite direction.
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