Colon epithelium. I. Light microscopic, histochemical, and ultrastructural features of normal colon epithelium of male Fischer 344 rats.

Although the colon of the inbred F344 rat is not distinctly demarcated into ascending, transverse, and descending segments as in the human colon, it can roughly be divided into ascending and descending portions that show distinct light microscopic, histochemical, and ultrastructural features. The ascending colon is characterized by a "herringbone" pattern of mucosal folds and test-tube-shaped uniform crypts that contain mucous cells (MC) with abundant mucin (acidic mucopolysaccharide--mostly sialomucin) in the lower one-third of the crypt, whereas the upper one-third contains two putative cell populations: 1) MC containing large globules of neutral mucopolysaccharide or sulfomucin and 2) columnar cells (CC), the full capabilities of which are unknown. The descending colon has longitudinal folds and contains sparse MC with small mucous granules at the lower one-third of the crypt, whereas the upper one-third contains numerous goblet cells. Neutral mucopolysaccharide is sparse and the acidic mucin is exclusively sulfated. Histochemically, the descending segment of the rat colon resembles the human descending colon in that the predominant type of mucus is sulfomucin. Ultrastructurally, the cell types observed in both the ascending colon and the descending colon are: a) MC, b) CC, c) endocrine cells, and d) undifferentiated cells.