Preliminary Studies on Quantitative Histology of Digestive Tract of Scophthalmus maximus Before and After Starvation

In this paper,the techniques of anatomy,paraffin section,HE staining and microscopy were used to observe the histological structure of the digestive tract of turbot,Scophthalmus maximus.Furthermore,the effects of starvation on histology of digestive tract were studied by measuring the thickness of striated border,height of columnar cells,wall and muscle layer thickness in digestive tract and the size of mucous cell in esophagus and intestine,also,the statistical data were analyzed.The results were as follows.Digestive tract was consisted of mucosa,submucosa,muscles and serosa layer.There were goblet cells in esophagus and intestine.From foregut to hindgut,the density of goblet cell increased,while the number and height of mucosa rugae decreased.In esophagus,the muscle was striated muscle,the inner was longitudinal and the outer was circular.However,in other segments of digestive tract,the muscle was made of smooth muscle cells,and the inner was circular and the outer was longitudinal.After starvation for 10 days,the thickness of striated border of digestive tract didn’t show significant changes,but the striated border of intestine disrupted and exfoliated.The height of columnar cells and the size of goblet cells significantly reduced in digestive.The thickness of muscle layer had no significant changes in esophagus and stomach,while it significantly decreased in intestine.This study provided scientific data for understanding turbot to the starvation tolerance and artificial culture of the fish.