A collection of microscopic photo of different human sense organs

1. Summary

2. TEM of retina
• (1) rods and cones layer. It is located below the
pigment epithelia which has been cut away
during the preparation and is not visible on this
image (black space on top). Below the rods and
cones layer you can find the
• (2) outer nuclear layer (ONL) which contains the
nuclei of the rods and cones.
• The adjacent (3) outer plexiform layer (OPL) is
followed by the (4) inner plexiform layer (IPL),
which contains numerous cell types, including
horizontal cells, bipolar cells and amacrine cells.
• At the very bottom you can see the (5) inner
nuclear layer (INL), followed by the (6) ganglion
cell layer with two (7) blood vessels shown at left
and (8) nerve fibers (which form the optical
nerve).

3. SEM of retina

4. Cochlea

5. SEM of the Organ of Corti

6. Organ of Corti

7. Semilunar canal

8. TEM of Vestibule hair cells
Left: TEM image showing the normal ultrastructural appearance of
both types of vestibular hair cells in the fused anterior and lateral
cristae of the Ecl mouse. Vestibular hair cells have a characteristic
shape and innervation pattern, i.e., a flask-shaped type I hair cell (I)
surrounded by a typical chalice and a rod-shaped type II hair cell (II).
Inset: Detail of a cross-section of the apical surface of a hair cell
showing the normal appearance of the stereocilia and the kinocilium.
Scale bars = 10 μm, 1 μm in inset.

9. Saccule and utricle

10. hair cells on the utricle
SEM image of the hair cells long microvilli
(hatched circles) on the utricle, revealing
long stereocilia (up to 5 µm in length)
partially surround a 9-µm kinocilium. (b)
TEM image through the elongate hair cells
and peripheral nerve bed. (c) The top of the
cell, buttressed by a long microvillus. cm,
cell membrane; cp, cuticular plate; hc, hair
cell; jc, junctional complex; lmv, long
microvilli; n, nucleus; ps, phagosomes; pnf,
peripheral nerve fibres; smv, short
microvilli.

11. AAV8 vector (Penn Vector Core) transduces vestibular
and cochlear hair cells with different efficiencies. (A)
Diagram of the mouse inner ear and viral injection
through the round window of the cochlea. The
vestibular sensory epithelia [AC, ampullar crista(e) of
the three semicircular canals; SM, saccular macula; UM,
utricular macula] and cochlear sensory epithelium (OC,
organ of Corti) are drawn in pink and in red,
respectively. Details of an AC and the OC are presented
on the left side and right side of this diagram,
respectively, with the hair cells (IHCs, OHCs, and VHCs)
drawn in red. The AAV8-Sans-IRES-GFP (Penn Vector
Core) recombinant virus injected through the cochlear
round window of a mouse on P2.5 transduces the vast
majority of VHCs (B, Upper) and transduces cochlear
IHCs and OHCs more efficiently in the apical region than
in the basal region of the cochlea (C, Upper), as shown
by the GFP labeling (green) on P8.5. All hair cells are
stained red by an anti-myosin VI antibody. Higher
magnification views of the AC (B, Lower) and the OC (C,
Lower) from the cochlear apical region are shown.
(Scale bars: Upper, 50 μm; Lower, 10 μm.)

12. Nasal lining. Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of the olfactory
epithelium that lines the nasal cavity, showing olfactory cells (green)
surrounded by numerous cilia (hair-like projection, brown).

13. Taste buds
Taste buds of circumvallate
papillae of the mature
cynomolgus (TEM observation)

14. Meissner’s Corpuscle
Krause bulbous
corpuscle
Ruffini’s corpuscle