The distribution of electron-dense tracers in peripheral nerve fibres.

Two electron-dense tracers, ferritin and lanthanum, have been administered to peripheral nerve fibres, and their uptake has been studied ultrastructurally. It was found that the perineurium was an effective barrier to ferritin in vivo, and the tracer was subsequently injected sub-perineurially. Ferritin uptake over a 120-min period was confined to occasional phagocytic vesicles in perineurial and Schwann cells, and to the nodal gap substance and paranodal periaxonal space. No uptake was observed in the myelin sheath, incisural intraperiod line gap, or in the axoplasm. Soaking fibres in ferritin in vitro resulted in a more generalized cytoplasmic and axoplasmic uptake, although the myelin sheath and Schmidt-Lanterman incisures remained devoid of the tracer. Lanthanum nitrate, included in the fixative solution, delineated the patent incisural intraperiod line gap, and outlined the external surface of the terminal loops of nodal Schwann cell cytoplasm, and the paranodal Schwann cell-axolemmal junction. Unlike ferritin, La'+ penetrated the myelin sheath, being usually confined to the intraperiod line region of the outer lamellae, where it was associated with a widening of the lamellar unit, and an apparent splitting of the intraperiod line. The results are discussed with regard to distribution of extracellular space in peripheral nerve fibres.