Renal architecture of the dogfish Scyliorhinus caniculus (Chondrichthyes, Elasmobranchii)

Abstract

The excretory portion of the opisthonephric kidney of Scyliorhinus caniculus displays a mesial zone that is supplied with venous blood by the renal portal system and with arterial blood from the efferent arterioles of the glomeruli, and a zone of lateral bundles that is irrigated with arterial blood via arterioles in parallel to the afferent arterioles of the glomeruli. Each single nephron performs two large convolutions in the mesial tissue and two hairpin loops in the bundle. The nephron is differentiated into renal corpuscle (located between the two zones), neck segment (in the bundle), proximal segment I (beginning in the bundle, major convolution between the zones), proximal segment II (exclusively in the mesial zone), intermediate segment (beginning in the mesial tissue and ending in the bundle), distal segment (exclusively in the bundle) and collecting tubule (beginning in the bundle, with a large convolution in the mesial tissue and ending in the bundle) that joins the collecting duct-ureter system. In the bundles proximal and distal nephron segments, the end of the renal tubule and a central bundle vessel are arranged together and form a complex countercurrent system that is enclosed in a sheath of connective tissue. The bundles provide the structural basis for the creation of an environment with low urea concentration around the final portion of the renal tubules, which is consistent with previous experimental evidence of a significantly lower urea content of the bundles as compared with the blood and the mesial tissue in another marine elasmobranch, Raja erinacea. This condition is thought to lead to passive reabsorption of urea from the fluid of the end of the renal tubule. Separation of individual nephrons in the bundle zone appears to be correlated with the peculiar secondary structure that results from the folding of the bundles and may be in addition a requirement in conjunction with intermittent function of the glomeruli. The zonation of the renal tissue with formation of bundles with counter-current systems is characteristically found in marine Elasmobranchs and is considered to be the morphological correlate to the physiological ability of the marine Elasmobranchii to use urea for osmoregulation.