[Structuro-functional organization of human elastic cartilage]

The light- and electron-microscopic investigation performed in order to study the elastic cartilage ultrastructure in the human concha auriculae has demonstrated that a peculiar feature of the later is abundance of elastic fibers both in its perichondrium and in the cartilagenous tissue. In the perichondrium the fibrillar elements (collagenous and elastic fibers) are oriented in parallel with the cartilagenous plate surface. There is not any definite regularity in the arrangement of the fibers of the cartilagenous tissue. As demonstrates the light microscopy, homogeneity of the ground substance is connected with a very compact arrangement of its fibrillar elements. Spaces between the fibers and fibrillae are filled with an amorphous ruthenium-positive substance of the proteoglycane nature.