Fine structural demonstration of acid phosphatase in rabbit germinal epithelium prior to induced ovulation.

The germinal or surface epithelium covering rabbit Graafian follicles contains occasional small, dark, lysosome-like bodies. After an ovulatory dose of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) such bodies gradually increase in size and number. At 8 hr after HCG there is a maximal accumulation in the apical follicle cells; then the dense bodies decrease and just prior to ovulation, 9.5 hr after HCG, only few of them remain in the attenuated surface epithelium. Most of the growing membrane-surrounded bodies probably represent lysosomes, since electron microscopy combined with cytochemistry revealed that many of them contain the lysosomal "marker" enzyme, acid phosphatase. The role of sex steroids and prostaglandins regarding lysosomal growth and LABILization is discussed. The close temporal relation between disappearance of the apical surface epithelial lysosomes and disintegration of the underlying tunica albuginea gives further support to our working hypothesis that at least part of the "ovulatory enzymes" emanate from the surface epithelium.