Cytological studies on the mucous membrane of the human intestine

II. On the PANETH's cells of the human intestine

Abstract

The secretory cycle of the human PANETH's cell may be divided into the following stages: the empty stage containing no secretory granules, the recovery stage producing the secretory granules, the accumulation stage filled with coarse secretory granules and the extrusion stage of the secretion products. Cells in the accumulation stage are most numerous, the empty cells can scarcely be found.
The GOLGI-apparatus of PANETH's cells consists of a network which changes its appearance during the secretory cycle; in the empty stage it is small and its structure the simplest showing a C-like shape. Both in the recovery and the accumulation stage it grows to a large and complicated net containing secretory granules in its meshes, but in the extrusion stage it is reduced again to a small and simple net.
The mitochondria in the PANETH's cells are filamentous, rod-like and granular in shape. In the empty stage they are most numerous and distributed equally throughout the cytoplasm. They begin to decrease, however, in the recovery stage and reach its extremity in the accumulation stage. In the extrusion stage they begin to increase again.
In the recovery stage mitochondria above the nucleus are torn into small darkly stained granules which grow and are transformed directly into secretory granules. As they ripen, their staining diminishes; we find in the cells in the accumulation stage among the deeply stained secretory granules, which are accumulated between the nucleus and the free surface, the faintly stained ones in various numbers. In the human PANETH's cells only a small number of them turn into secretory vacuoles. The majority of the secretory granules staining deeply or faintly leave the cells into the lumen before they are transformed into secretory vacuoles.