Apparent Nuclear-Cytoplasmic Transfer in Some Insect Blood Cells

Abstract

In an existent study of the blood picture of the southern armyworm, Prodenia eridania (Cram.), to be eventually utilized in an investigation of the effects of certain experimental procedures and toxic substances upon this insect, it has been necessary to make detailed microscopic observations with high magnification of the various blood (hemolymph) cell types. It has been observed frequently that the nuclei of certain blood cells present peculiar appearances which can be interpreted to indicate the occurrence of a transfer of material from nucleus to cytoplasm and, in some cells, even of a nucleus-to-cytoplasm-toplasma transfer. Whether the transfer is a nuclear budding or an extrusion of nuclear or nucleolar material is not distinguished in this paper, and “nuclear to cytoplasmic transfer” is used with the general meaning of any process that results in the location of small masses of nuclear material in the cytoplasm of the same cell. This appearance has been encountered with sufficient frequency in the blood of southern armyworm larvae to justify its description.