A new method of measuring the rate of shedding of epithelial cells from the intestinal villus of the rat.

Epithelial cells shed from the intestinal villus in starved rats were trapped in mucus which the goblet cells were stimulated to secrete; the number of trapped cells per villus was counted in whole mounts of fixed Feulgen-stained specimens from three sites in the small intestine. Increase in the interval between stimulation and fixation caused an increase in the number of shed cells per villus; the rate of this increase was postulated to represent the rate of cell shedding. The rate of cell production per crypt was measured with Colcemid; this rate, multiplied by the number of crypts per villus, gave the rate of cell production per villus. There was good agreement between these estimates of cell production and cell shedding.