Ultrastructural aspects of female aging Wistar rat epithelium tongue: a HRSEM and TEM study.
BACKGROUND
There is general consensus that the effects of intrinsic aging on the oral mucosa are relatively small, though potentially important to understanding the pathologies present in the aged animals.


OBJECTIVE
In this paper, the development of dorsal surface of rat tongue was examined using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high-resolution scanning electron microscopy (HRSEM) in order to understand the age-related structural and ultrastructural changes experimentally.


METHODS
In this study, we used female rats 75 and 720 days old (adult and aging). Tissues of rat tongue were prepared and the specimens submitted to HRSEM and TEM techniques.


RESULTS
The analysis of HRSEM and TEM demonstrated that the same characteristic keratinous epithelium was found in aging animals, however with some modifications.


CONCLUSIONS
We agree that there are obvious changes in the oral mucosa with aging and these modifications can be observed starting from the ultrastructural aspects.
Lopes
Marilia Gabriela de Oliveira
MG
Department of Anatomy, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Watanabe
Ii-sei
IS
Soares
Luís Eduardo Silva
LE
da Silva
Newton Soares
NS
da Silva
Marcelo Cavenaghi Pereira
MC
D000375:Aging / Q000473:pathology*; D000818:Animals; D003599:Cytoskeleton / Q000648:ultrastructure; D004848:Epithelium / Q000648:ultrastructure; D005260:Female; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000648:ultrastructure; D009061:Mouth Mucosa / Q000648:ultrastructure; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D014059:Tongue / Q000648:ultrastructure*