Tissue Distribution of Merkel Cells in Various Species
1. Centre for Drug Safety Evaluation and Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201203, China; 2. College of Life Sciences, Yantai University, Yantai 264005, Shandong, China; 3. Biomedical Research Center, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310020, Zhejiang, China
Abstract：Environmental stimuli play a key role in the survival and evolution of wild animals. Cell receptors that assist in perception, including touch and temperature, reflect biodiversity. Merkel cells (MCs) are impor-tant sensory cells in touch-sensitive areas of vertebrates. Herein, literature research and data statistics were used to investigate the distribution of MCs with the help of PubMed, ScienceDirect and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). The results showed that MCs had been observed in 77 species within 6 ani-mal classes including Mammalia, Amphibia, Aves, Reptilia, Cyclostomata and Actinopteri. The histopatholo-gical studies of MCs mainly focused on Mammalia, which accounted for 50% and mainly included human, monkey, rat, mouse, dog, cat, pig and rabbit, then followed by Amphibia and Actinopteri. In tissues and organs, MCs were found to be distributed in nose/vibrissae in 33 species, which accounted for 40%, suggesting that the nose and vibrissae are important parts for animals, especially wild animals, to perceive external mecha-nical stimuli. MCs were also studied in palate, perioral area, fingers/palms of hands/feet, lip, tongue, dorsal skin, gingiva, limbs, abdomen skin, eyes, cheeks, gills and other touch-sensitive sites of many species. Sys-tematically summarizing the distribution of MCs found in known species and studying the distribution of MCs in different species would be helpful to understand the role of environmental diversity in biodiversity.
