Comparative Study on Distribution of Sebaceous and Sweat Glands in Skin of Different Domestic Animals

Abstract

Background: Skin is the largest organ of the body, accounting for 15-20% of the total body weight and acts as a barrier between the external and internal environment and maintain homeostasis.The sweat and sebaceous glands in dermis of skin play vital role in developing the adaptive ability to the heat stress. Besides this, the distribution pattern and number of these glands vary in different animals that may aid in identification of different species.Methods: The study was conducted on abdominal skin of 36 adult cattle, buffalo, horse, goat, pig and dog (six sample of each) collected from abattoir, Veterinary clinics and post-mortem hall of GADVASU, Ludhiana. After collection, the tissues were fixed in 10% neutral buffered formalin and processed for paraffin block preparation. The paraffin sections of 5-6 µm were cut and stained with hematoxylin and eosin stain. Result: The study revealed that the sebaceous glands were multilobular, alveolar glands comprised of several layers of epithelial cells and were associated with hair follicles in all species studied. The number of sebaceous glands/mm2 was significantly higher (p≤0.05) in goat (1.60± 0.11) than in pig (0.44±0.06) whereas sebaceous gland diameter was significantly higher (p≤0.05) in buffalo (109.83±6.14 µm) than in goat (61.16 ±2.42 µm).The sweat glands were of saccular and simple coiled tubular type and most of them were associated with hair follicles. The number of sweat glands/mm2 was the highest in horse (3.10 ± 0.24) and the least in buffalo (0.76 ±0.05). Sweat gland diameter was significantly higher (p≤0.05) maximum in buffalo (123±3.15 µm) and minimum in goat (50.33 ±2.85 µm) and the difference.