Morphological heterogeneity of rat oligodendrocytes: electron microscopic studies on serial sections

The microanatomy of ensheathing and early myelinating rat oligodendrocytes was analyzed through electron microscopic examination of serial sections. The study included cells in the spinal cord (SC) ventral funiculus and the corpus callosum (CC), containing early myelinating, prospective large axons and late myelinating, prospective small axons, respectively. The results show that ensheathment commences fetal day (F) 19 in the SC and 12 days postnatally (P12) in the CC. By then, multipolar SC and CC oligodendrocytes provide axons with uncompacted cytoplasmic sheaths. The average number of axons ensheathed by each such cell was 7 in the SC and 13 in the CC. The mean diameter of the ensheathed axons was 0.69 micron in the SC and 0.36 micron in the CC. The formation of compact myelin had clearly been initiated at birth in the SC and at P17 in the CC. At that stage, the mean number of myelinated axons per analyzed oligodendrocyte was 3 in the SC and 15 in the CC. The mean diameter of the myelinated axons was 1.02 micron in the SC and 0.54 micron in the CC. These observations show that myelin-related rat oligodendrocytes are morphologically heterogeneous. It also seems that this heterogeneity is related to time of onset of myelination and prospective axon diameter. Further, the data suggest that some oligodendrocytes reduce the number of sheaths initially elaborated before formation of compact myelin.