Acid mucopolysaccharides in the development of the Pacific great skate, Raja binoculata

Existing histochemical techniques permit the identification of AMPS (Dorfman, 1963; Saunders, 1964; Scott, Quintarelli & Dellova, 1964; Spicer, 1960, 1963; Szirmai, 1963; Yamada, 1963 a, b , 1964; Zugibe, 1962, 1963) and considerable information is available on the AMPS constitution of specific tissues in adult organisms (Anno, Seno & Kawaguchi, 1963; Mathews & Hinds, 1962; Szabo & Roboz-Einstein, 1962). However, it has not yet been shown that it is possible to characterize AMPS specifically by histochemical methods in embryos or that the chain of events leading to specific AMPS localization in adult organisms can be ascertained histochemically during embryonic development. In this paper the following abbreviations are used: AMPS, acid mucopolysaccharide; CPB, cetyl-pyridinium bromide; PAS, periodic acid-Schiff reaction; C-S-A/C, chondroitin sulphate A and/or chondroitin sulphate C; C-S-B, chondroitin sulphate B; ABPAS, combined Alcian blue-PAS stain; ECM, extracellular material. Previous observations in this laboratory of embryo Raja binoculata yolk stalks indicated that sufficient AMPS are present to permit such a study (McConnachie & Ford, 1964).