The central cells of sponges

Abstract

Twenty-one species of Porifera have been surveyed by light microscopy for the presence, form, and relative abundance of a little known cell type known as central cells. They are found to be present in fifteen of these species and occur in six morphologically recognizable forms. Their functional roles are reinterpreted in the light of new distributional and abundance data. The central cells of the siliceous ceractinomorph demosponges are common and intimately associated with the choanocyte population. They probably play an important role in control of water currents within individual choanocyte chambers to mediate cleaning of the outer chamber surfaces. The central cells of keratosan and tetractinomorph demosponges appear to represent stages in egestive processes of wandering mesenchyme cells.