Thymic structural changes in relation to seasonal cycle and testosterone administration in wall lizard Hemidactylus...

Light microscopic and ultrastructural studies of thymus in wall lizard showed remarkable season dependent structural changes. In winter, the thymus was involuted and its cortico-medullary differentiation was not distinct. Thymocytes were sparsely distributed. The epithelial cells exhibited atrophic features such as an appreciable decrease in the nuclear-cytoplasmic ratio and accordingly reduction in cell organelles. The reconstruction of thymus commenced during spring and it became fully developed with marked delineation of cortico-medullary regions during summer. The thymus was then densely populated with thymocytes and epithelial cells showed voluminous cytoplasm having numerous cell organelles. The thymus regression started again by the beginning of autumn. The results suggest that the thymic development in wall lizard have inverse relationship with the androgen level, as the testicular steroidogenic activity was seen maximum during winter and least in summer. This assumption gets support by castration and testosterone replacement experiments. Castration of lizards during winter resulted in profound development of thymus with an appreciable increase in thymocytes mainly in the cortex region . The cortex became delineated from the medulla. Following testosterone treatment, the thymus underwent regression and was comparable to testis-intact lizard's thymus during winter season. After withdrawal of testosterone treatment, the thymus exhibited dense lymphoid and thymocyte population with a demarcation of cortico-medullary regions and sub-cortical region was regenerated.