Abstract
DR. LIEBMAN'S monograph, “On Trephocytes and Trephocytosis ; a Study on the Role of Leucocytes in Nutrition and Growth”(Growth, 10, 291 ; 1946), concerns a neglected field of invertebrate hæmatology, and combines a comprehensive review of the literature with a record of his own extensive studies. Attention is focused on leucocytic elements that contain inclusion bodies (granules, spherules and pigment), but which, according to the evidence, have no phagocytic function. The author advances a well-substantiated view that the inclusion bodies are elaborated inside these cells, which he calls 'trephocytes', and that they are discharged and utilized as nutrient material in regions of increased metabolic activity. Hence the concept of trephocytosis, which is thought to be the main function of these cells, as opposed to phagocytosis, which, in the author's opinion, may well be the main task of hyaline 'lymphoidocytes'. On the comparative side, a parallel is drawn between the trephocytes of invertebrates and the mast cells of vertebrates.
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TREPHOCYTES AND TREPHOCYTOSIS. Nature 159, 413 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/159413b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/159413b0