Ultrastructural Immunocytochemical Localization of Choline Acetyltransferase in Sympathetic Ganglia

Abstract

In the central nervous system the demonstration of neurones and nerve terminals immunoreactive for choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) has been successfully achieved by a number of groups, using several different primary antibodies, and has already almost the status of a routine procedure. In the peripheral nervous system the immunolocalization of this transmitter- synthesizing enzyme has not been entirely straightforward, as the antibodies and procedures which are effective in central nervous tissue do not always prove so efficacious in the periphery. Lindh et al. (1986) and Landis et al. (1987) have recently demonstrated immunolocalization of the enzyme in nerve terminal networks in peripheral autonomic ganglia at the light microscope level. We here report its immunocytochemical, ultrastructural localization, in nerve fibres and nerve endings of sympathetic ganglia of the rat.