A Morphological and Histometrical Study on Distribution and Heterogeneity of Mast Cells of Chicken’s and Quail’s Digestive Tract

This study was carried out to determine distribution and heterogeneity of mast cells in the digestive tract of the both chicken and quail. Ten Leghorn chickens and ten Japan quails were use during the investigation. Having been sacrified by decapitation, the chickens and quails’ tongue, crop, esophagus, proventriculus, gizzard, duodenum, jejunum, ileum, caecum and colon tissue samples were taken. Those samples were processed and blocked following the fixation with the BLA (basic lead acetate Mota), Carnoy’s and IFAA (isotonic formaldehyde acetic acid) solutions. The histologic sections were stained with toluidine blue and alcian blue – safranine in order to determine the mast cells distribution and heterogenity in the digestive tract. Both Mast cells distribution and heterogeneity were found to be different between the digestive tract organs. In both animal species, the mast cells were found to be at very high number in the tongue, crop, esophagus and proventriculus whereas they were very few in the gizzard.In additition, it was found that BLA and Carnoy’s solutions were better relative to IFAA to determine the distribution of mast cells. Positive reactions were observed against alcian blue in the staining of all mucosal mast cells in both animal species with alcian blue safranine mix. However, safranine was reactive only to esophagus, proventriculus, gizzard, colon, and tongue mast cells. In addition, alcian blue (+) granules beside the safranine (+) granules could be observed rarely, in those mentioned organs.