COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF THE PARACORTICAL POST‐CAPILLARY VENULES OF NORMAL AND NUDE MICE.

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Abstract
The ultrastructure of the post‐capillary high endothelial venules in the axillary and inguinal lymph nodes of normal mice and mice which suffer from a congenital aplasia of the thymus (nude mice) was studied. Although the lymph nodes of nude mice showed severe depletion of small lymphocytes in the paracortex and in most parts of the outer cortex the ultra‐structure of many post‐capillary venules was completely normal. The endothelial cells had a high cytoplasm with a prominent Golgi apparatus, many mitochondria, ribosomes and strands of rough endoplasmatic reticulum. In contrast to normal mice, both lymphocytes and polymorphonuclears traversed the vessel wall of the post‐capillary venules, being constantly localized between and not inside the endothelial cells. In the wall of post‐capillary venules of the nude mice degenerating leucocytes were often seen to be subjected to phagocytosis by the endothelial cells. A finding—not noticed in previous studies—was the occurrence in both nude and normal mice of an intimate contact between a few of the traversing lymphocytes and the endothelial cells. In areas with such an intimate contact there was a fusion of the glycocalyces of the lymphocyte and endothelial cell membranes. The endothelial cells showed in many cases signs of an intense secretion activity with secretory granula obviously being liberated into the intercellular spaces.

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