Distribution of Calcium and Phosphate in Cells of the Enamel Organ in the Rat Lower Incisor

¹ Department of Biochemistry, School of Dental Medicine, Tsurumi University, 2-1-3 Tsurumi, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama 230, Japan

The distribution of calcium and phosphate in the cells of the enamel organ of the rat lower incisors was investigated by autoradiography and energy-dispersive x-ray spectrometry (EDS).

Radioactive calcium or phosphate was injected i.p. into seven-day-old rats of the Wistar strain. The animals were frozen 0.5, 1, and 10 min after injection, and embedded in 5% carboxymethyl cellulose. Sagittal sections of 10 µm thickness were made in which the lower incisor was included as a part of the whole-body section. For autoradiography, the sections were freeze-dried and Placed in contact with dry thin films prepared from autoradiographic emulsion. For EDS, sections were mounted on carbon stubs, freeze-dried, coated with carbon, and examined by EDS in a SEM. ⁴⁵Ca and ³²P autoradiograms showed that the radioactivity was located over the papillary layer cells adjacent to the secretory stage ameloblasts and was much higher here than in the ameloblastic layer. On the other hand, there was no significant difference between the amount of radioactivity of these two cell layers in the maturation stage, although higher radioactivity was detectable in the maturation stage enamel than in the secretory stage enamel. Pronounced Ka x-ray peaks were obtained for P,S,CI, and K originating from the cells of the papillary and ameloblastic layers in the secretory stage, but only very low peaks were obtained for Ca. On the other hand, in addition to these elements, remarkably high Ca and Fe peaks could be detected in the ameloblastic layer of the maturation stage.

Note:

We are indebted to Professor R.W. Fearnhead for his valuable comments and advice.

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