Adrenal chromaffin cells in the stressed mouse.
Mice were supinely restrained on a board by pinning the limbs. The board was then made to stand vertically and immersed in water to the height of the hind limbs of the animals. At 4 ao 28 hr after this restraint plus water-immersion stress, a remarkable decrease in the number of secretory granules in the chromaffin cells was light microscopically demonstrated in silver-impregnated and toluidine-blue-stained semithin sections. Exocytotic invaginations containing pleomorphic granule materials were demonastrated by thin section and freeze-fracture replica electron microscopy. This stress-induced exocytotic degranulation of the chromaffin cells was accompanied by the occurrence of numerous small cytoplasmic vesicles resembling the synaptic-type vesicles of the small granule chromaffin cells.
D000313:Adrenal Medulla / Q000166:cytology*; D000818:Animals; D002837:Chromaffin Granules / Q000648:ultrastructure; D005614:Freeze Fracturing; D007101:Immersion; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D012149:Restraint, Physical; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000473:pathology*