Ceroid-Origination Histochemically Studied by the Administration of Erythrocytic Stroma in Suspension

Abstract

The contention that ceroid is directly derived from unsaturated lipids, has been widely held since HASS achieved the artificial production of acid-fast, fat solvent-insoluble copolymers in the subcutaneous tissues of guinea pigs.
On the other hand, HARTROFT et al. reporte d that the occurrence of sudanophilic material surrounded by red blood cells in the ruptured fatty cysts in the liver of rats fed a diet low in choline suggests that erythrocytes may be closely bound to the occurrence of ceroid. In the present study, it was found that the ceroid-type copolymers derived from the subcutaneously injected unsaturated fats, could be differentiated from ceroid in the lymph nodes since both sudanophilia and the mercury-affine reaction of the copolymers were retained despite the loss of those in ceroid after oxidation with peracetic acid followed by treatment with methylation.
From these results, an attempt was made to prove that the formation of ceroid would be intimately connected with the phagocytosis of erythrocytic stroma by macrophages. A suspension of erythrocytic stroma was intraperitoneally or subcutaneously administered to young rats to examine whether ceroid could be found in macrophages in the lymph nodes and others within several weeks after administration.
Consequently, it was frequently found that considerable amounts of "immature ceroid"from the 7th post-administrative day and of ceroid from approximately the 21st postadministrative day coexist with comparatively small amounts of hemosiderin in some hypertrophied macrophages.
Such findings could not be recognized in the macrophages in un-treated young rat lymph nodes where moderate amounts of ceroid alone were occasionally seen.
Therefore, it is probable that the origin of ceroid coexisting with hemosiderin in the macrophages would be traceable to red cell envelope which contains protein-bound phospholipid as its main components.