Activités cholinestérasiques dans le foie de Poulet Rôle de l'endoderme dans l'apparition d'activités cholinestérasiques dans la composante mésenchymateuse du tissu hépatique

Cholinesterases in the chick liver. The role of the endoderm in the appearance of the activity of cholinesterases in the hepatic mesenchyme The histochemical method of Koelle & Friedenwald (1949), as modified by Gerebtzoff (1953), has been used to investigate the distribution of cholinesterases in the chick embryonic and adult liver. Non-specific cholinesterases and, in a lower proportion acetylcholinesterase, have been detected in the endothelial cells of blood sinusoids of both adult and embryonic hepatic tissue. The hepatocytes do not show any cholinesterase activity. Cholinesterases appear precociously in the liver mesenchyme, since they already occur in the septum transversum of the 3-day-old chick embryo. An experimental procedure preventing the invasion of the hepatic mesenchymal Anlage by the endodermic cords has been used. The experimentally isolated hepatic mesenchyme shows an important cholinesterase activity; therefore this activity does not depend on the presence of the hepatocytes. The grafting of the determined hepatic endodern in the somatopleura of the 3-day-old chick embryo results in the development of hepatic tissue in the body wall. In this experimentally produced liver, cholinesterase activities are present in the endothelial cells which have arisen from somatopleura mesenchymal cells, though normally somatopleural mesenchyme does not possess these enzymes. The role of the endoderm in the appearance of this enzymic activity in the somatopleural mesenchyme is discussed.