The plasma cells or plasmocytes develop from some types of B-lymphocytes, folowing antigen recognition by the lymphocytes.
They are spherical or ovoid, whose cytoplasm stains with a mixture of hematoxylin and eosin due to the presence of a large amount of ribosomes in their well developed rough endoplasmic reticulum. They actively synthesize and secrete large amounts of proteins most of which are different classes of immunoglobulins (antibodies).
Their nuclei are spherical, usually displaced off the cell center. They usually contain large clumps of heavily stained chromatin, some of them often placed at the nuclear periphery, under the nuclear membrane.
With a light microscope, another very often feature seen around the nuclei is a clear, non-stained, halo or area similar to a crescent moon. It is the region of the greatly developed Golgi apparatus of these cells highly involved in protein synthesis. The Golgi area does not stain well by the dyes commonly used in tissue sections.
After clicking or hovering over the image the cytoplasm of some plasma cells becomes highlighted in red, a crescent of plasmocyte (labelled by an arrow) in the upper figure in highlighted in blue.
and lymphocytes in green.
Identify unlabelled plasma cells in the figure.
Plasma cells and lymphocytes can also be seen on page 12-14 and in thenext pages.
Inflammatory infiltrate. Staining: HE. Magnification: medium.
