Blood-nerve barrier in the Vater-Pacini corpuscle of cat mesentery

Correlated thin-section, freeze-fracture and tracer examinations were used to examine the blood-nerve barrier of the Vater-Pacini corpuscles in cat mesentery. A laminar inner core and a multilayered outer core enfolded the terminal nerve fiber of the corpuscle. The lamellar cells of both cores were characterized by numerous vesicular membrane invaginations. Freeze-fracture images and tracer experiments employing lanthanum nitrate proved that these invaginations are static structures mediating in neither active pinocytosis nor the transcellular transport of metabolites. In both inner and outer cores, lamellar cells were connected to one another by tight junctions of either the zonula or the fascia type, that occurred between lamellar-cell processes within the lamella and between the cells of adjacent lamellae. Intravascularly applied lanthanum lay at the outermost regions of the corpuscles without entering their internal zones, apparently because lamellar-cell tight junctions hindered further penetration. The results of our investigations suggest strongly that the Vater-Pacini corpuscle lamellae enfolding the nerve terminal form an effective diffusion barrier against the permeation of tissue fluids, thus preserving the corpuscle internal circumference.