The human gingival indeterminate cell revisited

Electron microscopic examination of over 100 dendritic cells in human keratinized gingiva has shown that the indeterminate cells are not a separate cell type. This approach disclosed the sources of error which have led to the commonly held, but erroneous, view that there exist numerous indeterminate cells in this epithelium. Two interesting differences were found between gingival and epidermal Langerhans cells. The number of Birbeck granules in the former cells can be extremely low while they occur frequently in the epidermal cells, and granules in their formative stage are commonplace in the gingival cells but rare in the epidermal cells.