Observations regarding the structure of the parotid and mandibular glands in rabbit

Abstract

Our study aims to investigate the histological structure of two major salivary glands in adult rabbit. We used 5 adult rabbits, 3 males and 2 females, from a private breeder in Cluj. We harvested the salivary glands, fixed them in 10% buffered formalin, dehydrated in ethanol (increasing concentration), clarified in n-butanol and embedded in paraffin. The sections (5 µm thickness) were stained with Goldner’s trichrome method and examined with an Olympus BX41 light microscope. Histologically, parotid gland in rabbit contains only one type of acini, which presents morphological characteristics of serous acini. In mandibular gland, the acini are all the same, similar to the ones in parotid gland. Concerning the general aspect and dimension they are much larger and polymorphic.