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Programmed cell death in the nervous system of an adult insect
Author(s) -
Truman James W.
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
journal of comparative neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 209
eISSN - 1096-9861
pISSN - 0021-9967
DOI - 10.1002/cne.902160410
Subject(s) - biology , manduca sexta , programmed cell death , insect , neuroscience , degeneration (medical) , nervous system , anatomy , pathology , ecology , medicine , genetics , apoptosis
The tobacco hornworm moth, Munducasexta , shows extensive degeneration of abdominal neurons after the adult moth emerges (ecloses) from the old pupal skin. Death of interneurons begins about 2 hours before eclosion and continues through the next 30 hours. Motorneuron degeneration starts slightly later, commencing at about 8 hours after eclosion. Analysis of the death of identified motorneurons showed that there was a precise spatial and temporal program of neuronal death. Particular cells invariably either continued to live or died and, among the latter, the time of death varied from cell to cell but for a given cell was constant. This program of cell death was somewhat flexible in that the fates of certain cells could be adaptively modified by behaviors that might naturally occur in the life of the insect.