A fine structural study on the extracellular activity of alkaline phosphatase and its role in calcification.

Abstract

Nine day old experimental calluses in radii of young rats were treated with Gomori's (1939) calcium-cobalt method to demonstrate ultrastructurally the presence of alkaline phosphatase in a search for its possible role in the desposition of calcium. Enzyme activity first appeared as globule-like precipitates outside the cell membrane of early hypertrophic cartilage cells. This precipitate layer then seemed to give rise to spherical bodies of alkaline phosphatase which occur at a slight distance from the cell. The spherical bodies were also observed further away from the cell in an intermediate zone between neighboring cells. Needle-like crystal formation, apparently calcification, occurred inside single or aggregated bodies, leaving their peripheral rim clearly visible, even when calcification had increased to such an extent that individual crystals could no longer be recognised. In controls, treated in the same way but without substrate, or with EDTA, no enzyme precipitate or spherical bodies were seen. The appearance of crystalline deposits in bodies which contain alkaline phosphatase seems difficult to explain on any other basis than that there is a close functional association between the enzyme and calcification.