Rosenthal fibres: an immunohistochemical, ultrastructural and immunoelectron microscopic study

The nature of Rosenthal fibres (RF) was investigated in eight cases each of low-grade astrocytoma and reactive gliosis using immunohistochemical (IH) staining for glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), electron microscopy (EM) and immunoelectron microscopy (IEM) by immunogold labelling technique. By IH under light microscopy (LM), three types of RF were seen, uniformly positive (type I), rim positive (type II) and completely negative (type III). EM showed variation in structural pattern of RF. Some RF contained large amount of glial filaments (GF) intermingled with RF while others with a large amount of electron dense material and less GF. Thus, the presence and amount of GF in RF appear to be responsible for the different types of IH staining under LM. IEM showed that all RF including the ones consisting of entirely amorphous material possess immunoreactivity for GFAP. It is suggested that RF formation is a two-stage process, starting with excessive accumulation of GF within astrocytic processes followed by their gradual alteration into electron-dense amorphous material under the influence of some unknown metabolic or other factors. The quantitative analysis of different types of RF suggests a difference in the rate of formation of RF in neoplastic and reactive conditions.