An ultrastructural study of the interrenal cell of Fundulus kansae adapted to freshwater and to seawater
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"Seawater appears to have different effects on the interrenal cell of different teleost fish. Hanke et al. (1969) found that when yellow Anguilla anguilla were transferred from freshwater to seawater, the interrenal cell nuclear diameter decreased during the first two days. However, during the following four weeks in seawater, it increased and even became greater than its value in freshwater, indicating a stimulation of the interrenal cells. That the interrenal cells of Anguilla anguilla are stimulated in seawater is also indicated by the findings of Ball et al. (1971). They measured the level of cortisol in the plasma of the (European) eel, Anguilla anguilla, after transfer from freshwater to seawater, seawater to freshwater, and freshwater to distilled water and found that the level of cortisol changed significantly only in the transfer from freshwater to seawater, and the increase which they found in this case corresponded to "the development and correction of an osmotic crisis," meaning that the increase in cortisol paralleled the increase in the plasma electrolyte concentrations. On the other hand, Pickford (1953a, 1953b, 1954) and Pickford et al. (1957) found that in Fundulus heteroclitus living in salt water, the interrenal tissue seemed to be unaffected by hypophysectomy, thus perhaps indicating that the interrenal cell in this fish in salt water is relatively inactive. Similarly, Fleming et al. (1971) found that when Fundulus kansae were exposed to 0.40 M saline for 14 days, there were marked degenerative changes in the interrenal cells (as compared with interrenal cells in the freshwater control fish). And Fleming et al. (1972) reported that when Fundulus kansae were adapted to 1277o seawater, there was a significant decrease in the value of the interrenal cell nuclear diameter from that in freshwater control fish, and they indicated that this supported the possibility that in Fundulus kansae the interrenal tissue is less active in seawater than in freshwater. One purpose of the present study was, therefore, to determine, by electron microscopy, the effect of seawater-adaptation on the inter renal cell of Fundulus kansae (as compared with the effect of freshwater adaptation), and to see if the interrenal cells of this fish in seawater showed (with electron microscopy) signs of degeneration, as they did in the light microscopic studies of Fleming et al. (1971) and Fleming et al. (1972) mentioned above. The only other fish in which the interrenal cell has been studied by electron microscopy is Carassius auratus, the goldfish, in studies done by Yamamoto et al. (1965) and Ogawa (1967). Thus another purpose of the present study was to describe, by electron microscopy, the interrenal cell of Fundulus kansae, a euryhaline fish, adapted to freshwater and to seawater."--Introduction.
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M.A.