Fine structure of extracellular fibers in primo-nodes and vessels.

To investigate the extracellular matrices in the primo-nodes (PNs) and vessels (PVs) (Bonghan corpuscles and ducts), fine structure of the fibers comprising the extracellular matrices was studied in relation to the diameter and the periodicity to identify the types of the fibers. Electron micrographs of the fibers from the previously published works on the PNs and PVs were analyzed by using MATLAB programming and ImageJ software. The extracellular fibrous components of the PNs and PVs could be classified generally into two groups--thin collagen fibrils and thick non-collagenous wavy bent fibers. The thick bent fibers were fibrin-like. The diameters of the thick bent fibers were 30-200 nm and they were highly bent. This group included organ surface PNs and lymphatic PNs/PVs. The diameters of the collagen fibrils were 30-70 nm. Organ surface, heart, and hypodermis PVs were categorized in this group. The periodicity of bent fibers in an organ surface PN was 16.1 +/- 0.2 (SE) nm, and the periodicity of collagen fibrils in the hypodermis PVs was 37.4 +/- 0.5 (SE) nm. Further investigations are required to reveal the physiological implications of the two types of fibers in the PNs and PVs.