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Morphological and phenotypical diversity of eosinophils in the rat ileum

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Abstract

Eosinophils are abundantly present in intestinal mucosa. However, the morphological characteristics of their cellular population are still largely unknown. In this study, we examine their characteristics in the rat ileal mucosa using histological and ultrastructural methods. The results indicated that ileal eosinophils could be distinguished into two main groups based on their nuclear shapes and distribution: eosinophils with spheric or reniform nuclei mainly localized in the villous region and eosinophils with annular or bacilliform nuclei as the major population around crypts. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that all eosinophils in the lamina propria (LP) were immunopositive for CD11b, whereas eosinophils in LP of the intestinal villus but not those in LP around the crypt, were immunopositive for CD11c. Three-dimensional ultrastructural analysis using serial block-face scanning electron microscopy showed that the eosinophils with spheric or reniform nuclei were abundant in the upper portions of the intestinal villus, whereas those with annular nuclei were abundant in the lower portions of the intestinal villus and around crypts. The eosinophils with spheric or reniform nuclei possessed broader cellular bodies with greater abundance of surface projections compared with those with annular nuclei. Eosinophils in the upper portions of intestinal villus frequently extended their cellular bodies into the intraepithelial space. The number of total and eosinophil-specific granules was positively correlated with the minor axis of the nuclear holes in the annular nuclei. These data suggest that ileal eosinophils exhibit not homogenous but rather diverse characteristics, possible due to the mixture of eosinophils at different maturation and/or activation stages.

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Acknowledgments

Dr. N. Ohno (Jichi Medical University) kindly provided the Ketjen black to prevent the charging of samples.

Funding

This study was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (grant nos. 15K07766 and 16K18813).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Experimental Immunology, WPI Immunology Frontier Research Center, Osaka University, Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan

    Masaya Arai

  2. Laboratory of Histophysiology, Department of Bioresource Science, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Kobe University, 1-1 Rokkodai-cho, Nada-ku, Kobe, Hyogo, 657-8501, Japan

    Masaya Arai, Youhei Mantani, Satoki Nakanishi & Hiroshi Kitagawa

  3. Bio 3D Promotion Group, Application Management Department, JEOL Ltd., 3-1-2, Musashino, Akishima, Tokyo, 196-8558, Japan

    Tomohiro Haruta

  4. Laboratory of Animal Molecular Morphology, Department of Bioresource Science, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Kobe University, 1-1 Rokkodai-cho, Nada-ku, Kobe, Hyogo, 657-8501, Japan

    Miho Nishida, Toshifumi Yokoyama & Nobuhiko Hoshi

  5. Department of Anatomy and Regenerative Biology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka City University, 1-4-3, Asahi-machi, Abeno-ku, Osaka, 545-8585, Japan

    Hideto Yuasa

Authors
  1. Masaya Arai
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  2. Youhei Mantani
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  3. Satoki Nakanishi
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  4. Tomohiro Haruta
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  7. Toshifumi Yokoyama
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  8. Nobuhiko Hoshi
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  9. Hiroshi Kitagawa
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Youhei Mantani.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (permission numbers: 25-06-01 and 30-05-01). All procedures performed in studies involving animals were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution (the Kobe University Animal Experimentation Regulations) or practice at which the studies were conducted.

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Arai, M., Mantani, Y., Nakanishi, S. et al. Morphological and phenotypical diversity of eosinophils in the rat ileum. Cell Tissue Res 381, 439–450 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00441-020-03209-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00441-020-03209-6

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