Enzymatic Digestion of Desmosome and Hemidesmosome Plaques Performed on Ultrathin Sections

The fine structure of desmosomes is well established (1-3), and some information about their chemical composition is available (4-6) . Recently techniques were developed for performing enzymatic digestions on osmium tetroxide-fixed, alcoholor acetone-dehydrated and epoxyembedded tissues (7-10) . These methods can determine with considerable specificity the organic components of many cell structures (8-10) . Protease digestion, for example, permits chemical discrimination among certain morphological components of desmosomes and hemidesmosomes .