The development of the plasma membrane reticular system in the fat body of an insect

Abstract

Several insect tissues have plasma membranes that are folded inwards to make a subsurface reticulum on faces that are exposed to hemolymph. The infolds have been called plasma membrane reticular systems (RSs) to distinguish them from the somewhat similar structures found in transporting epithelia. They are characterized by having negative charges on the plasma membranes of the entranceways and by the concentration of some hemolymph proteins in their lymph spaces. Their formation and loss in the fat body has been studied by scanning electron microscopy during the fifth stadium of Calpodes ethlius (Lepidoptera, Hesperiidae). Fat body cells begin the fifth stadium arranged in ribbons with the cells linked together by a fringe of processes. In the first stage many more processes form. These partially fuse together in the second stage, leaving a subsurface reticulum connected by narrow entrances to the lateral cell faces and the face below the basal lamina. Both the cell processes and the reticular systems that they enclose are usually axially orientated. The completed RS persists for the second half of the intermoult devoted to larval syntheses when the concentration of hemolymph proteins rises. After protein sequestration prior to pupation the RS is lost and the fat body returns to being a tissue of rounded cells linked by a few enmeshed processes.