European Journal of Anatomy

Official Journal of The Spanish Society of Anatomy
Cover Volume 2 - Number 1
Eur J Anat, 2 (1): 7-13 (1998)

Visualisation of endocardial cells in the cardiac jelly of quail using Mab QH1

J.C. Martín-Rodríguez, J. Murillo-González, C. Tudela, C.Martínez-Álvarez, J. Puerta and J. Pérez-Miguelsanz

Departamento de Ciencias Morfológicas 1, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Complutense, 28040 Madrid, Spain

ABSTRACT Cardiac jelly is a basement membrane located between the endocardium and myocardium, which is seeded by fibroblastic cells in the atrio­ ventricular canal and outflow traer.It has been demonstrated that this process begins with the emission of endocardial cell pro­ longations followed by cell seeding in the car­ diac jelly, with the subsequent transformation into mesenchyme by myocardial induction of specific molecules at stage 16 HH CHamburger and Hamilton, 1951) in chicken ernbryos.In this work, using the monoclonal antibodyQH1 (a specific marker for cel! surface determi­ nants on quail vascular endothelial cells ancl haemopoietic ce lis) , we observecl the appearan­ ce of free non-QH1-expressing cells in cardiac jelly at stage 9+ HH; at stage 13 HH we only observecl QH1-positive cells ancl these were mixed with non-QH1-expressing cells, increa­ síng the number of QH1-possitive cells at stage16 HH, Furthermore, clear links between themyocardium and enclocardium have been obser­ved in the three stages studied.The c1ata suggest that in quail mesenchyme formation in cardiac jelly is proportionally earlier than that describecl for chickens, and that the first mesenchymal ce lis do not express QH1, This suggests clear links between the endocar­ diurn and myocardíurn in the stages studíed. The appearance of links between the myocarclium and the endocarclium occurs earlier than stages16-17 HH in chicken ernbryos, when mesenchy­mal tissue formation starts.

Keywords: Cardíac jelly - Mesenchyme forma­ tion - Heart development - Quail ernbryo - QH1- Monoclonal antibody.

European Journal of anatomy
ISSN 2340-311X (Online)