Deposits of fluorescent acid-fast products in the nervous system and skeletal muscles of adult rats with chronic vitamin-E deficiency.

Since 1940 there have appeared several reports on neuromuscular lesions in adult rats in experimental vitamin-E deficiency. It is apparent that side by side with changing concepts of vitamin E and the effects of its deficiency in general, a considerable change in the evaluation of the neuromuscular lesions in particular has taken place. Since the occurrence of neural lesions in experimental vitamin-E deficiency has been seriously doubted, and the earlier work of Einarson and Ringsted (1938) on this subject has been strongly criticized by some leading authorities on vitamin E, I have found it absolutely necessary to reinvestigate the matter, with special reference to the changes of the nerve cells, in particular the cell change I have called " cellular lipodystrophy ". Two of my recent works on this subject have already been published (Einarson, 1952a and b), and the present paper is the third in the new series. Ringsted (1935) reported certain neuromuscular disturbances in adult rats that had been kept on a vitamin-E deficient diet for a long period (months). This observation formed the basis of our comprehensive investigation of the whole neuromuscular syndrome and its pathogenesis, and three years later we published our monograph on the effect of chronic vitamin-E deficiency on the nervous system and the skeletal musculature in adult rats (Einarson and Ringsted, 1938). In the following years this publication was supplemented by some brief papers on the subject (Ringsted and Einarson, 1939; Einarson and Ringsted, 1939 ; Einarson, 1941), and the problem has been further dealt with in some of my later work on the structural changes of nerve cells (Einarson, 1945; Einarson and Lorentzen, 1946; Einarson, 1949). A very conspicuous and important feature of the histological changes in vitamin Edeficient adult rats is the regular occurrence of peculiar lipoid products in the nervous system, as originally reported and illustrated by Einarson and Ringsted (1938). These products are insoluble in alcohol, stain reddishorange with fat stains, and give an intense orthochromatic colour (e.g., a pure blue or green) with basic aniline dyes, but they are left completely unstained by gallocyanin-chromalum (Einarson and Ringsted, 1938; Einarson, 1941, 1949, 1952). The facts, to be demonstrated in this paper, that the products in question are also fluorescent on ultraviolet irradiation and acid-fast when stained by carbol fuchsin add some additional important characteristics. The products mentioned are regularly absent in normal rats or controls receiving protective doses of vitamin E. This paper will deal mainly with the structural appearance and distribution of these fluorescent, acid-fast deposits in the nervous system and skeletal muscles of vitamin E-deficient adult rats. However, I find it appropriate first to give a brief account of the clinical symptoms displayed by the rats.