Morphology of corpuscles of Stannius  in the fresh water fish, Notopterus  notopterus

Pruthvi raj C.Bedjargi; Nagaveni P.Bedjargi; R.S.Kulkarni

Volume : III, Issue : III, March - 2014

Morphology of corpuscles of Stannius in the fresh water fish, Notopterus notopterus

Pruthvi Raj C. Bedjargi, Nagaveni P. Bedjargi, R. S. Kulkarni

Abstract :

The morphology of corpuscles of Stannius (CS) in the fresh water fish, Notopterus notopterus found embedded in the anterior portion of the posterior kidney. Only one pair of corpuscles was observed. The CS is formed from evaginations of mesonephric ducts and this origin makes the CS unique among endocrine gland of verteates. The location of corpuscles of Stannius in the teleostean kidney presents several variations and this variation in location suggested to be related to the taxonomic position of the fish species.The corpuscles of Stannius of N. notopterus are spherical in shape; the cells of the gland are usually arranged in strands, separated by septa of connective tissue continuous with outer fious capsule. The septa contain all the vascular and nervous elements. The vascularization of CS is rich, which results in a better access of the gland cells to the blood circulation. The cyto–architecture of the CS in N. notopterus shows four types of arrangement of connective septa and cells. The first type cells are arranged in the form of cords along the thin septa exhibiting circular appearance. In the second type, thin penetrating connective tissue septa divide the corpuscles into several incompletely delimited lobes. The third type septa are better developed and more prominent then the previous type. The union of ramifying connective tissue causes same groups of cells to become separated from the rest, forming smaller delimated lobes. In the fourth type composed of aggregates of small lobes, each of which consist of a number of complete and incomplete lobes. The penetration of connective tissue septa into single corpuscles makes the corpuscles bilobed, trilobed or even multilobed condition. Two principle types of cells are observed type–l and type–2. Type–1 cells are round with clear vesicular nucleus and stainable material in the cytoplasm ,type–II cells are slender, irregular cell bodies that may contain cytoplasmic processes extending between the type–I cells, A third type–III cells was also noticed.