Continued study of the ultrastructure of the gingiva in the diabetic mouse

A continued study of gingival biopsies from the Jackson strain diabetic mouse revealed not only an amorphous thickening of the basement membranes of the blood vessels, but also a lamellar thickening. The normal control blood vessels had basement membrane widths in the 2000-A range, whereas the diabetic animals exhibited an average width of 8000 A. These changes were significant at the 0.1% level. Other changes seen in our studies were: (1) an alteration in the endothelial lining of the blood vessels which appeared as an increase in pseudopod or flap formation on the luminal side, and (2) the appearance of large dense bodies within the epithelial cell mitochondria in the mouse which to our knowledge has not been previously described.