International Journal of Histology and Cytology

ISSN 2756-3707

International Journal of Histology and Cytology Vol. 1 (11), pp. 103-111, November, 2014.  © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Histological, histochemical and immunohistochemical studies on thymus of chicken

Soad A. Treesh1, Amal O. Buker2 and Nadia S. Khair 3

1Department of Histology  and medical genetics, Faculty of Medicine, University ofTripoli, Libya.

2 Anatomy, Histologyand Embryology Department ,  Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tripoli, Libya.

3Department of Histology, Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University, Egypt.

Email: [email protected]

Accepted 23, June 2014

Abstract 

The thymus is the major site of T cell production and an important organ of the immune system,due to lack of some information on  presence of the plasma cells in thymus we study it .Thirty six apparently normal  chicken which  differ in age and gender were included. The tissue samples were prepared for histological,histochemical and immunohistochemical studies.The appearance of plasma cells beganat the 4th week of age, in the medulla, and their number increased along the thymus development.In concomitant with the appearance of blood capillaries at the corticomedullary junction by 3th and 4th weeks of age and a few Hassall's corpuscles in the medulla at 4th weeks of age . These corpuscles were constantly increased in number with age, and that was demonstrated in the 21, 30 weeks-old. We concluded that, the appearance of plasma cells in chicken thymus at  different ages provides further support to the idea that  the thymus  may function as a secondary lymphoid organ , and it is capable of playing a direct role in the immunereactions. This is important role in vaccination of chicken and in future research works.

Key words: Plasma cell, thymus, Chicken, histochemical, Immunohistochemical.