AN ABNORMALLY HIGH OCCURRENCE OF MALFORMED KINOCILIA IN THE TRACHEAL EPITHELIUM OF A CLINICALLY HEALTHY RABBIT

An abnormally high occurrence of malformed kinocilia containing axonem es with different number or arrangement of microtubules compared with the typical 9+2 pattern of motile cilia was encountered in the trachea l epithelium of one clinically healthy rabbit. The malformed cilia amo unted to 6.87% of all kinocilia. Individual types of ciliary malformat ions were further classified. The frequency of ciliary malformations w as compared with that in all other rabbits the ciliary border of which has been quantitatively evaluated in our laboratory. Using Grubbs tes t the extremely low probability of occurrence of such a high number of malformed kinocilia in the rabbits' population was verified. The stud ied rabbit suffered from a mild form of the immotile cilia syndrome, b ut the loss of less than 10% of moving cilia did not lead to the expre ssion of the clinical signs of the impaired function of cilia in the o rganism.