Department of Anatomy, Wuxi Medical School, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China.
Department of Neurology, Wonkwang University School of Medicine and Hospital, Institute of Wonkwang Medical Science, 895, Muwang-ro, Iksan-si, Jeollabuk-do, 54538, Republic of Korea.
Ann Anat. 2020 Jan;227:151421. doi: 10.1016/j.aanat.2019.151421. Epub 2019 Sep 26.
Our group had recently described human hand Pacinian corpuscles (PCs): the hand PCs are not simply arranged along the digital palmar nerves but often exhibited specific morphologies known uncommonly. However, there is still no or few information about human foot PCs.
We observed transverse sections of all five toes including the interdigital area obtained from 12 feet of eight fetuses at 28-33 weeks (crown-rump length 230-290mm). Serial sections were prepared for 3D reconstructions and measurement.
Foot PCs were characterized by (1) a dense distribution in the interdigital area in contrast to a few PCs in the distal tip of the all five toes; (2) abundant dorsal PCs including those in the nail bed and: (3) a long chain of PCs in the flexor tendon sheath of all five toes. Therefore, a distal dominance was not evident in the foot in contrast to the hand and, a tendon sheath contained much greater numbers of PCs than the hand. A tree-like or bouquet-like arrangement of PCs along a short perforating artery to the palmar digital skin was seen in the foot as we had described in the hand. The tree of foot PCs was sometimes seen laying transversely along the digital skin surface, not toward the skin.
It is still unknown that, in utero, how the PCs distribution became different between the hand and foot: it might be determined genetically in a region-specific manner.
我们小组最近描述了人类手部的Pacinian 小体（PC）：手部 PC 并非简单地沿着指掌侧神经排列，而是经常呈现出不常见的特定形态。然而，目前关于人类足部 PC 的信息仍然很少。
我们观察了来自 8 个胎儿的 12 只脚的所有 5 个脚趾（包括趾间区域）的横切面，这些胎儿的孕周为 28-33 周（头臀长 230-290mm）。制备了连续切片以进行 3D 重建和测量。
足部 PC 的特征为：（1）在趾间区域呈密集分布，而在所有 5 个脚趾的远端尖端仅有少量 PC；（2）丰富的背侧 PC，包括趾甲床中的 PC；（3）所有 5 个脚趾的屈肌腱鞘中有长串的 PC。因此，足部的远端优势不明显，与手部相反，并且，腱鞘中的 PC 数量远多于手部。在足部，就像我们在手部描述的那样，PC 沿着短穿支动脉呈树状或花束状排列到掌侧指皮。足部 PC 的树状结构有时会横向沿着指皮表面分布，而不是朝向皮肤。
目前尚不清楚在子宫内，PC 分布如何在手和足部之间变得不同：它可能以特定于区域的方式在遗传上决定。
