The concentration of choline into specific regions of the thoracic ganglion in B-methylcholine fed houseflies.

When larvae of the housefly, Musca domestica, are reared on a diet in which most of the choline has been replaced by a choline analogue, B-methylcholine, the small amount of choline available to the insect is largely taken up into the nervous system where it is incorporated into phosphatidylcholine and acetylcholine. Using autoradiographic techniques it is shown that, in the thoracic ganglion, the phosphatidylcholine component of this preferentially accumulated choline is not evenly distributed throughout the tissue but that a well-defined pattern of patches of silver grains is found over certain areas of the neuropile. Underlying this pattern are axons and glial processes structurally indistinguishable from the axons and glia of adjacent areas which show a much lighter autoradiographic reaction. It is concluded that the axons which produce this high density of silver graining are cholinergic and have a high affinity for choline.