An immunocytochemical study of human pituitary mammotropes from fetal life to old age

Abstract

The objectives were to (a) describe the cytology and distribution of mammotropes in the human pituitary gland, (b) determine whether the mammotrope is a distinctive secretory cell type and (c) ascertain when it first appears in the fetal hypophysis. Identification of mammotropes was based primarily on the Sternberger peroxidase‐antiperoxidase immunocytochemical method used with an antiserum to human prolactin. Hypophyses from 25 male and 6 female adults, and 21 fetuses ranging in gestational age from 6 to 23 weeks were studied. In the adult two morphological forms of mammotropes were observed. Mammotrope I possessed a small perikaryon that commonly was located centrally in parenchymal cell cords. From the perikaryon long cytoplasmic processes extended toward neighboring capillaries. Mammotrope I reached its highest incidence in the posterolateral zones of the pars distalis. Mammotrope II possessed a larger perikaryon with short processes; cells of this form were fewer and occurred chiefly in the anteromedian zone. Mammotropes with intermediate morphological features that prevented classification into categories I or II were common in some hypophyses. Both forms of mammotropes were present prepuberally (one 6‐week and one 9‐year‐old male) and in adult males and females. Mammotropes were only slightly more prominent in females than males. Regression of mammotropes was evident in old age. Mammotropes were distinctly different from somatotropes, corticotropes, gonadotropes and thyrotropes. In the fetal hypophysis mammotropes appeared first at 14 weeks of gestational age and remained few through 16.5 weeks. Their number increased greatly at 23 weeks.