title: Quantitative evaluation of pinocytosis of capillaries of the stria vascularis under normal and experimental conditions.
abstract: In order to examine evidence of high activity of pinocytosis in capillaries of the stria vascularis, quantitative morphometry of pinocytotic vesicles was carried out ultrastructur-ally by the horseradish peroxidase (HRP) tracer method. In guinea pigs, there was a significant difference between the stria vascularis and spiral ligament in the number of vesicles per urn(2) (p<0.05) and labelled vesicles per urn(2) (p<0.001). In normotensive control rats, the number of labelled vesicles per u,m(2) in capillaries of the stria vascularis was significantly greater (p<0.001) than that of the spiral ligament. Results of acute hypertensive and acute hypotensive experiments both indicated that enhanced permeable capillaries of the stria vascularis showed no significant increase in the number of pinocytotic vesicles per urn(2), but that they showed a more significant increase in the number of labelled vesicles per um(2) than non-enhanced permeable capillaries of the stria vascularis (p<0.01) and capillaries of the spiral ligament (p<0.001). These findings provide ultrastruc-tural confirmation of our previous studies (4, 8, 9) that pinocytosis contributes to the high permeability of capillaries of the stria vascularis under normal and experimental acute hypertensive and acute hypotensive conditions.
authors: Department of Otolaryngology, Osaka University Medical School, Osaka, Japan.
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Sakagami
authors: T
authors: T
authors: Harada
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Sano
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Sakai
authors: T
authors: T
authors: Matsunaga