OBJECTIVETo confirm the existence of the nerve fibers on the endolymphatic sac (ES) and compare the innervation of endolymphatic sac with that of kidney to reveal their relationship.

METHODSFifteen healthy Swards white rats were processed by heart pouring. The temporal bones and kidneys were taken out and were processed and sectioned by paraffin-embedded technique. The sections of ES and kidney were both stained by the antibody that was not labeled by biotin, including antibodies for neurone specific enolase (NSE), glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and neurofilament (NF). The slides were observed by light-microscope and analyzed by image-analyzer system and the subsequent data was treated statistically by SPSS 11.0.

RESULTSOn light-microscope, the brown positive staining was observed both in the epithelia of ES and the principal cell of renal collecting duct. However, there was not any positive staining on the negative control slides. Through image analysis to the grey and density, there was no difference between the expression of ES and that of the principal cell of renal collecting duct (P > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONSNerve fibres exactly exist in the epithelia of ES. There is similar density innervation between the ES and the principal cell of renal collecting duct.