CYTOCHEMICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LYSOSOMES AND PHAGOSOMES IN KIDNEY AND LIVER BY COMBINED STAINING FOR ACID PHOSPHATASE AND INTRAVENOUSLY INJECTED HORSERADISH PEROXIDASE

After incubation of formalin-fixed, frozen sections of kidney and liver from peroxidase-treated rats in an azo dye medium for acid phosphatase, and after subsequent incubation of the same sections with benzidine, phagosomes were stained blue and lysosomes were stained red in the same cells. It was observed that newly formed phagosomes were separate from preexisting lysosomes in the tubule cells of the kidney and in the Kupffer cells of the liver at early periods after treatment with peroxidase. At later periods, the color reactions for acid phosphatase and peroxidase occurred in the same granules. The reaction of peroxidase decreased gradually and disappeared from the phago-lysosomes after 2 to 3 days, whereas the reaction for acid phosphatase persisted. In the liver, most of the injected protein was concentrated in large phagosomes located at the periphery of the cells lining the sinusoids. The peribiliary lysosomes showed a relatively weak reaction for peroxidase in the proximity of the portal veins. After pathological changes of permeability, phagosomes and lysosomes lost their normal location and fused, in the interior of many liver cells, to form large vacuoles or spheres. The effects of a reduced load of peroxidase and the effects of the pretreatment with another protein (egg white) on the phago-lysosomes of the kidney were tested. The relationship of the fusion of phagosomes with lysosomes to the size of normal and pathological phago-lysosomes was discussed.