Ultrastructural study of tracer permeability through the cat and ferret enamel organ

The access of exogenous materials to the developing enamel surface has been intensively studied in rodents, but not in other mammalian species. This ultrastructural study investigates the permeability of injected horseradish peroxidase (HRP) and lanthanum tracers in cat and ferret tooth buds. In cat enamel organs fixed by immersion, lanthanum did not escape the capillaries overlying secretory stage tooth buds, but it did permeate up to the distal junctions of ruffle-ended (RA) and the proximal junctions of smooth-ended (SA) ameloblasts. Perfusion fixation with lanthanum compromised junctional integrity of cat ameloblasts at all stages of development. Similarly, HRP rarely escaped the capillaries associated with cat secretory stage enamel organs. However, unlike lanthanum, HRP was mostly confined to the vasculature of maturation stage enamel organs in immersion fixed cats at all time intervals examined. In ferrets, HRP penetrated up to, but not beyond, the distal junctional complexes of secretory ameloblasts. In maturation stage enamel organs, HRP coated the papillary and RA cells, but did not penetrate the RA distal cell junctions. HRP did permeate the extracellular spaces of SA to reach the underlying enamel surface. Ameloblasts in transitional phases of SA and RA endocytosed HRP at the distal cell surface. This data leads to several conclusions. First, HRP localization in the ferret paralleled that observed in rodents. Second, the results of cat enamel organs substantiate previous studies showing perfusion fixation can increase vascular and intercellular permeability to lanthanum. However, in cats fixed by immersion, both lanthanum and HRP were restricted to capillaries associated with the secretory stage enamel organ, and only lanthanum escaped maturation stage capillaries. It is suggested that variations in the fenestrations and distribution of capillaries associated with the cat enamel organ may differentially retain some materials and permit other materials to escape with relative ease.