THE HISTOCHEMICAL DEMONSTRATION OF THE SITES OF LUTEOTROPIC HORMONE IN THE RAT PITUITARY GLAND1

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Abstract
This study describes the development and tests the usefulness of a histoehemical method for the demonstration of the sites of Luteotropic hormone (LTH) in rat pituitary glands. When these glands, taken from normal animals, are immersed in 0.5% trichloracetic (TCA) acid, only LTH is precipitated; the remainder of the anterior pituitary hormones are dissolved and extracted as proven by appropriate bio-assays and in vitro tests. When such extracted glands, containing a normal amount of only LTH, are fixed in histological fixatives, sectioned and stained by histochemical methods that specifically reveal the sites of either sulfhydryls and disulfides or carboxyl groups, only the granular cytoplasm of some of the acidophils are reactive. Basophils, chromophobes and the remainder of the acidophils are unreactive. Reduction of the concentration of TCA to 0.1%, which extracted LTH in addition to the other hormones, eliminated the histochemical reaction in all the parenchymal cells. In addition, the number of cells that reacted histochemically in the 0.5% TCA extracted glands of pregnant and lactating rats varied directly with the amount of hormone present.