Early embryonic development of the liver of the one-humped camel (Camelus dromedarius) [electronic resource].

Includes references.

The present study was carried out to highlight the histomorphological struc-ture of the liver of the one-humped ca-mel during early embryonic life. Sam-ples were collected from pregnant she- camles after slaughtering and eviscera-tion. Different embryonic stages were taken and the crown to rump (CVR) length was measured to the nearest millimeter (ranging from 7 to 185 mm). Morphological study revealed that the liver primordium appeared at 7mm CVR length fetuses. At 12mm CVR length the liver was related cranially to the septum transversum and heart, caudally to the primitive spleen, mesogastrium, and primitive stomach and to the lesser omentum while dorsally it was related to the mesonephrous and ventrally to the floor of the abdominal cavity. Lobation of the liver appeared at fetal lengths of 50 mm CVR length. Histological study revealed that the liver parenchyma con-sisted of a mass of hepatic foci, hae-mopoietic cells and irregular wide blood spaces. The primordium of Glisson's capsule appeared in fetuses of 75 mm CVR length. Megakaryocytes were no-ticed among hepatocytes and heamo-poietic foci. Sections stained with the Giemssa stain revealed group of mast cells among hepatocytes. Hepatic tis-sue stained by Methyl green pyroninn stained revealed that hepatocytes showed methyl green positive materials while haemopoietic cells showed pyri-nophilic positive granules at 12 mm CVR length fetuses. Small sized mito-chondrial granules appeared in the cy-toplasm of the hepatocytes stained with Iron haematoxylin in fetuses of 12 mm CVR length. Hepatocytes were faintly stained with PAS. Electron microscopic study revealed that the hepatocytes of 185 mm CVR length camel fetuses con-tained large glycogen globlules in addi-tion to abundant mitochondria. Histo-morphometric studies were applied to compare the mean number of hepatic foci to that of haemopoietic foci and also to measure the number and size of megakaryocytes. Key words Prenatal development, Liver, Camel.

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