Comparative Sweat Gland Ultrastructure of Cattle, Sheep, Goats, Horses and Humans Before and During Thermal Stimulation

Montgomery, Ian (1987) Comparative Sweat Gland Ultrastructure of Cattle, Sheep, Goats, Horses and Humans Before and During Thermal Stimulation. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

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Abstract

The sweat glands of the cow, sheep, goat, horse and man were examined ultrastructurally at different stages of activity in an attempt to explain the different patterns of sweat output obtained from the skin. The studies illustrated that sweat is formed in the fundus from the products of secretion and cell death. Secretion involved fluid transport, exocytosis and in man and the horse a possible subsidiary micro-apocrine process. The appearance of the duct was similar in all species and activity produced little change other than dilatation of the intercellular spaces except for the coiled duct of man. This unique portion of the duct demonstrated secretion and seems to be more than an absorptive region. The difference in the patterns of evaporative loss could not be explained on the basis of the morphological changes during secretion which were basically similar in all the species examined. As a prelude to the study of functional aspects of sweat production, the site of Na,K-ATPase, an enzyme which plays a central role in fluid transport, was localized in unstimulated and active glands. This enzyme was not consistently localized in the glands of cow, sheep, goat and horse although it was always found on the lateral and basolateral membranes of the secretory cells in the rat footpad sweat gland, which was used as a control tissue. When present in the other species, the enzyme was localized on the lateral and basolateral membranes of the secretory cells in the sheep and horse and after thermal stimulation also on the luminal membranes of the cow, sheep and horse. These distributions, however, could not be unequivocally established even after detailed experimental studies. The reaction product was not representative of alkaline phosphatase which was localized on the myoepithelial membranes of the cow, sheep and goat glands and on the luminal microvilli of the horse. The results demonstrate that the traditional classification of sweat glands as eccrine and apocrine is not valid. It is suggested that these terms are replaced by the anatomical designations atrichial and epitrichial respectively, until more detailed information on the method of sweat production is available.

Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
Qualification Level: Doctoral
Keywords: Physiology
Date of Award: 1987
Depositing User: Enlighten Team
Unique ID: glathesis:1987-77584
Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
Date Deposited: 14 Jan 2020 11:53
Last Modified: 14 Jan 2020 11:53
URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/77584

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