Identifying motor and sensory myelinated axons in rabbit peripheral nerves by histochemical staining for carbonic anhydrase and cholinesterase activities.

Carbonic anhydrase (CA) and cholinesterase (CE) histochemical staining of rabbit spinal nerve roots and dorsal root ganglia demonstrated that among the reactive myelinated axons, with minor exceptions, sensory axons were CA positive and CE negative whereas motor axons were CA negative and CE positive. The high specificity was achieved by adjusting reaction conditions to stain subpopulations of myelinated axons selectively while leaving 50% or so unstained. Fixation with glutaraldehyde appeared necessary for achieving selectivity. Following sciatic nerve transection, the reciprocal staining pattern persisted in damaged axons and their regenerating processes which formed neuromas within the proximal nerve stump. Within the neuromas, CA-stained sensory processes were elaborated earlier and in greater numbers than CE-stained regenerating motor processes. The present results indicate that histochemical axon typing can be exploited to reveal heterogeneous responses of motor and sensory axons to injury.