Ultrastructural features of rat pituicytes in organotypic culture

Summary Neural lobes of adult rats have been explanted and organ-cultured for 5–10 days. While perivascular cells and neurosecretory fibers undergo a progressive degeneration, scattered pituicyte-like cells are observed mostly associated with each other in number of two or three cells for group. Cultured pituicytes are quite similar to in vivo pituicytes except for some particular features as the shape of the nucleus and the number of dense bodies. Furthermore they share with the in vivo pituicytes the phagocytic capacity which appears even increased as far as neurosecretory fibers are concerned. Finally, degenerating pituicytes and free lipid droplets are observed in the intercellular spaces: the significance of these facts is discussed and tentatively interpreted. The organotypic culture of the neural lobe seems to represent an experimental model useful to obtain a relatively pure population of pituicytes.With the technical assistance of Vincenzo Panetta.