Butterfly eyespot organiser: in vivo imaging of the prospective focal cells in pupal wing tissues.

ABSTRACT: Butterfly wing eyespot patterns are determined in pupal tissues by organisers located at the centre of the prospective eyespots. Nevertheless, organiser cells have not been examined cytochemically in vivo, partly due to technical difficulties. Here, we directly observed organiser cells in pupal forewing epithelium via an in vivo confocal fluorescent imaging technique, using 1-h post-pupation pupae of the blue pansy butterfly, Junonia orithya. The prospective eyespot centre was indented from the plane of the ventral tissue surface. Three-dimensional reconstruction images revealed that the apical portion of "focal cells" at the bottom of the eyespot indentation contained many mitochondria. The mitochondrial portion was connected with a "cell body" containing a nucleus. Most focal cells had g

SUBMITTER: Iwasaki M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5240560 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature