Ultrastructural consideration on the nature, sol and gel, of the aqueous cytoplasm in embedment-free section electron microscopy

TEM of any in situ cells in embedment-free sections—regardless of specimen-fixation methods—clearly shows strand-lattices occupying the cytoplasmic matrix. The cytoplasmic matrix is assumed to be a site of soluble proteins; however, it appears indistinct as conventional TEM cannot target it. Strand-lattices similar to the cytoplasmic ones are duplicated in bovine serum albumin as well as solated gelatin fixed at warm temperatures and at appropriate concentrations, while lattices from gelatin gelated by cooling before fixation are much more compact than those from solated gelatin at a given concentration. Based on the finding of the in vitro proteins, a new interpretation of cell ultrastructures in embedment-free section TEM is proposed: first, differences in the compactness of cytoplasmic lattices represent those in the protein concentration in the cytoplasmic matrix; second, when loose and compact lattices are contiguous within a cell, the cytoplasmic matrix domain occupied by the compact lattice is in a gel state while the remaining domain of the same cell is in a sol state. The explanation for the states of the gel and sol based on the lattice-compactness is applicable to changes in the lattice-compactness of the cytoplasmic matrix of neurohypophyseal axons under intense secretion.