PROPORTIONS AND STRUCTURE OF CONTACTING AND NONCONTACTING VARICOSITIES IN THE PERIVASCULAR PLEXUS OF THE RAT TAIL ARTERY

Most sympathetic postganglionic noradrenergic varicosities of the perivascular plexus of small muscular arteries in laboratory mammals make contact with the outer smooth muscle cells of the media at neuromuscular junctions. These neurovascular junctions have most of the characteristics of those in skeletal muscle. In the rat tail artery, which bears a particularly dense perivascular plexus, many studies indicate that both purinergic and noradrenergic mechanisms underlie neurally mediated vasoconstriction. We have examined the relationship of large axonal varicosities to the smooth muscle surface of proximal parts of this vessel using three-dimensional reconstructions from serial thin sections photographed in the electron microscope. Unlike in small arterioles, less than 50% of the large varicosities lying within 1 mu m of the outer surface of this artery were found to make neuromuscular junctions. In some non-contacting varicosities, accumulations of synaptic vesicles were aggregated toward axonal membrane which was bare of Schwann cell toward the vessel surface. Prejunctional membrane specializations were detected at 20% of contacting and 12% of non-contacting varicosities. All of the latter lay close ( < 350nm) to the smooth muscle. These anatomical data suggest that, in the rat tail artery, transmitter release by exocytosis may occur from both types Of varicosity. (C) 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.