Elastin in human, baboon, and mouse liver: an immunohistochemical and immunoelectron microscopic study

Light microscope histochemistry and immunohistochemistry, and routine electron microscopy techniques were performed to analyse elastin distribution and structure in the human liver compared with that in baboon and mouse. In man and baboon, elastic fibers stained by iron hematoxylin or orcinolnew fuchsin seemed to be solitary and were few in number; in the mouse they were thinner but abundant, both in the portal tract and in hepatic veins. Orcein or resorcin-fuchsin stains, employed after oxidation of tissue sections, revealed a network comprising elastic, elaunin, and oxytalan fibers, which was also demonstrated by immunofluorescence with anti-elastin antibody in man and baboon. At the ultrastructural level, the elastic fibers of the human portal tract corresponded to discontinuous patches of amorphous material intermingled with few microfibrils. These contrasted with the thinner elastic fibers of baboon and mouse liver which had a core of amorphous material. In man and baboon, these fibers meshed into slender bundles of microfibrils often exhibiting small spots of amorphous material (elaunin fibers) and terminated as isolated microfibrils (oxytalan fibers). Immunoelectron microscopy of elastin carried out on baboon liver tissue labelled the amorphous material and also its microfibrillar component. Immunoperoxidase deposits were also associated with isolated bundles of microfibrils in the baboon portal stroma. Immunolabelling and elastic stains disclosed an important elastin portal network located around vascular, biliary structures and interspaced with collagen bundles. The structural polymorphism of elastin, assembling different relative amounts of amorphous material and microfibrils, might have a relationship with the required elasticity in a given species.