[Histonet] Do mice have tonsils??

[Gayle Callis]

Colleen,

Rodents do NOT have tonsils, but have tissues analogous (Sp?) to tonsils, 
called nasal associated lymphoid tissues located in a rather difficult spot 
at the back of the nasal turbinates.  I suggest you get into the literature 
and type in murine NALT as there are some excellent articles on morphology 
and their location.  If you want to do frozen sections, you either need to 
remove these from this area, not easy to do, and takes a lot of practice OR 
you can do undecalcified bone frozen sections with the Cryojane.  The NALT 
is located above the soft palate, just below the 3rd  palatine ridge if you 
start counting ridges on the soft palate and starting count at the front 
incisors.  These tiny lymphoid tissues are nestled on the roof of the mouth, 
just below the soft palate, between the back molars.  The molars are the 
complicating factor for doing murine CD markers that only work on frozen 
sections. I will be happy to send you a powerpoint photograph of a fully 
decalcified mouse head, mid sagittal section, stained with H&E to show 
exactly where the NALT is located.  I also have a cross section of the 
murine nasal turbinates showing NALT in that orientation, and much harder to 
deal with in order to find the NALT.  One project had PLP perfused mouse 
head, immersion fixed longer and then EDTA decalcified, cryoprotected and 
sectioned on the cryostat to do immunoglobulin staining of turbinate 
epithelial cells back and into the NALT.

We work with NALT a good deal, and I can honestly say that 
dissection/removal is not easy.  However, it can be done but with very 
gentle, light touch using a pointed, tiny scalpel blade. When we do frozen 
sections of removed NALT, we can obtain approx 30 - 40 sections, serial, at 
5 um and with treated animals to produce inflammed NALT, up to 50 and more 
serial sections.  With undecalcified bone, we get far fewer due to the 
difficulty of sectioning.

G0 into PUBMED, and look for David Pascual, Keri Cscentis on their NALT 
publication.  I believe they put a cartoon of NALT location in that 
publication.

Good luck,

Gayle M. Callis
HTL/HT/MT(ASCP)
Bozeman MT 59715


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Colleen Forster" <cforster <@t> umn.edu>
To: <histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2008 4:36 PM
Subject: [Histonet] Do mice have tonsils??


> For any of you have done mouse necropsy, do they have tonsils or just 
> lymph nodes? I have had a request for mouse tonsils.... can't seem to find 
> them in my searches. I would appreciate any help on this one.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Colleen Forster
> U of MN
>
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