Abstract

BackgroundStudies on the development of the nervous system and the musculature of invertebrates have become more sophisticated and numerous within the last decade and have proven to provide new insights into the evolutionary history of organisms. In order to provide new morphogenetic data on opisthobranch gastropods we investigated the neuromuscular development in the nudibranch Aeolidiella stephanieae Valdéz, 2005 using immunocytochemistry as well as F-actin labelling in conjunction with confocal laser scanning microscopy (cLSM).ResultsThe ontogenetic development of Aeolidiella stephanieae can be subdivided into 8 stages, each recognisable by characteristic morphological and behavioural features as well as specific characters of the nervous system and the muscular system, respectively. The larval nervous system of A. stephanieae includes an apical organ, developing central ganglia, and peripheral neurons associated with the velum, foot and posterior, visceral part of the larva. The first serotonergic and FMRFamidergic neural structures appear in the apical organ that exhibits an array of three sensory, flask-shaped and two non-sensory, round neurons, which altogether disappear prior to metamorphosis. The postmetamorphic central nervous system (CNS) becomes concentrated, and the rhinophoral ganglia develop together with the anlage of the future rhinophores whereas oral tentacle ganglia are not found. The myogenesis in A. stephanieae begins with the larval retractor muscle followed by the accessory larval retractor muscle, the velar or prototroch muscles and the pedal retractors that all together degenerate during metamorphosis, and the adult muscle complex forms de novo.ConclusionsAeolidiella stephanieae comprises features of the larval and postmetamorphic nervous as well as muscular system that represent the ground plan of the Mollusca or even the Trochozoa (e. g. presence of the prototrochal or velar muscle ring). On the one hand, A. stephanieae shows some features shared by all nudibranchs like the postmetamorphic condensation of the CNS, the possession of rhinophoral ganglia and the lack of oral tentacle ganglia as well as the de novo formation of the adult muscle complex. On the other hand, the structure and arrangement of the serotonergic apical organ is similar to other caenogastropod and opisthobranch gastropods supporting their sister group relationship.

Highlights

  • Studies on the development of the nervous system and the musculature of invertebrates have become more sophisticated and numerous within the last decade and have proven to provide new insights into the evolutionary history of organisms

  • We investigated the development of the central nervous system and the musculature in the nudibranch Aeolidiella stephanieae Valdéz, 2005 in order to gain insights into the structure and evolution of these organ systems

  • The Nudibranchia belongs to the Opisthobranchia which represents a morphologically diverse group of gastropods occupying a great variety of ecological niches

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Summary

Introduction

Studies on the development of the nervous system and the musculature of invertebrates have become more sophisticated and numerous within the last decade and have proven to provide new insights into the evolutionary history of organisms. The development of more sophisticated techniques to study the detailed structures of nervous systems as well as muscular systems has provided new insights into the organization of these character complexes and has yielded so far unknown information to understand the evolutionary history of organisms Some of these studies focussed on the investigation of serotonergic as well as FMRFamidergic characteristics of the nervous system utilizing immunocytochemistry in conjunction with confocal laser scanning microscopy [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. By using immunocytochemical markers for the characterisation of the nervous system and F-actin labelling for muscles of the nudibranch A. stephanieae we provide new data that in future studies can help to elucidate phylogenetic or evolutionary relations of these enigmatic animals by comparison with other Opisthobranchia, Gastropoda or Mollusca respectively

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