An electron microscope study of the Harderian gland of the snake, Rhabdophis tigrinus, revealed the occurrence of a myoid cell in the glandular body. The myoid cell, in oval profile, is located in the perivascular space and enveloped by a basement membrane. The plasma membrane of the cell is studded with a number of vesicular caveoli. The myoid cell cytoplasm is largely occupied by myofilaments...

The presence of the HGF/Met system in the testicular myoid cells was first discovered by our group. However, the physiological role of this pathway remains poorly understood. We previously reported that HGF increases uPA secretion and TGF-β activation in cultured tubular fragments and that HGF is maximally expressed at Stages VII-VIII of the seminiferous epithelium cycle, when myoid cell contra...

The expression of activin type II and IIB receptors and inhibin alpha-, beta A-, and beta B-subunit messenger RNAs (mRNAs), and the secretion of immunoreactive and bioactive activin during culture of testicular peritubular myoid cells and peritubular myoid cell lines were studied. Cultured peritubular myoid cells and cell lines expressed high levels of inhibin beta A-subunit mRNA and some inhib...

BACKGROUND The results of a recent study demonstrated an association between myoid differentiation and an adverse prognosis in adult patients with pleomorphic sarcoma, as determined by 5-year metastasis-free survival rates. METHODS To confirm the importance of muscle differentiation on prognosis in a well controlled clinical context, 92 samples from patients with pleomorphic sarcoma of the ex...

Light and transmission electron microscopic studies of thymic myoid cells in Nandanam Chicken was done in various age groups ranging from day-old to forty weeks. Thymus is the central lymphoid organ in fowl, provides a complex environment essential for T-cell development and maturation. The thymic gland in chicken was covered by a thin connective tissue capsule. The connective tissue septa divi...

We report a case of double uterine tumor resembling ovarian sex cord tumor (UTROSCT). The tumor was composed of sex cord-like cords, nests and tubules, and bundles of myoid cells. The lesion was interesting especially in regard to histogenesis of intratumoral myoid cells. It is not known whether these cells are neoplastic or whether they represent preexisting myometrial smooth muscle cells entr...

Most common tumors of the spleen are hematologic and lymphoid malignancies. Non-lymphoid and non-hematologic tumors of the spleen are very rare, the most common of which are vascular tumors. This group of tumors in the spleen is composed of heterogeneous tumors such as hemangioma, angioendothelioma (AE), littoral cell angioma, and angiosarcoma. There are several histologic forms of AE such as e...

FSH stimulates testicular growth by increasing Sertoli cell proliferation and elongation of seminiferous cords. Little is known about the peritubular myoid cells in testicular development. In order to investigate the role of peritubular myoid cells in early testicular growth in rodents, two traditional models to induce testicular growth were used: FSH treatment and hemicastration. In order to a...

Left-right (LR) asymmetry is essential for organ development and function in metazoans, but how initial LR cue is relayed to tissues still remains unclear. Here, we propose a mechanism by which the Drosophila LR determinant Myosin ID (MyoID) transfers LR information to neighboring cells through the planar cell polarity (PCP) atypical cadherin Dachsous (Ds). Molecular interaction between MyoID a...

The myoids of retinal cone cells of the blue-striped grunt (Haemulon sciurus) undergo significant elongation during dark adaptation of the retina. Longitudinally oriented microtubules are present in myoids both before and after elongation. Injection of colchicine into the vitreous of the eye in vivo disrupts the microtubules in the myoids and prevents dark-adaptive myoid elongation. Counts of m...