The Fine Structure of Some Retinal Photoreceptors

An electron microscope study has been made of octopus and amphibian photoreceptors, after fixing with KMnO(4) and embedding in araldite. What has previously been seen as a single dense stratum bounding the tubular compartments (octopus) or the double membrane discs (rods and cones), now shows a double structure. We interpret this as showing that these tubules and discs have similar bounding surfaces, which are probably directly related to the cell membrane. This is confirmed by the finding that the tubules and discs are (at least occasionally) continuous with the cell membrane.