(A) Diagram of anterior portion
of ventral nerve cord (vnc) examined for expression of presumptive AVB: B motor neuron gap junctions.
Scanning electron microscopy revealed that, in adult worms, the axochord is deeply embedded in the fibrous sheath
of the ventral nerve cord (16) and remains connected to the transverse muscles (Fig. 3, C and D).
Bottom: Magnification
of ventral nerve cord of Chengjiangocaris kunmingensis.
Not exact matches
Further analysis revealed that some aspects
of the nervous system in C. kunmingensis appear to be structured similar to that
of modern priapulids (penis worms) and onychophorans (velvet worms), with regularly - spaced
nerves coming out from the
ventral nerve cord.
Those axons branch out from the
ventral nerve cord, which runs the length
of the bee's abdomen — further evidence, they say, that the magnetic properties
of those cells influence the nervous system.
Axons
of these
nerves leave the spinal
cord in the
ventral branches (rami)
of the spinal
nerves, and then separate out as «white rami» (so called from the shiny white sheaths
of myelin around each axon) which connect to two chain ganglia extending alongside the vertebral column on the left and right.
Stained for Futsch (green, segmented sensory neurons and dispersed cell bodies in the
ventral nerve cord) and Ank2 - L (magenta, segmented
ventral nerve cord and a subset
of sensory neurons).
Low levels
of GFP expression were also observed in a number
of cells in the brain and the
ventral nerve cord (VNC)(Fig 2F and 2G), in which no CCHa2 - R expression was detected by FISH, probably due to its lower sensitivity.
At this stage animals are large enough such that the cell bodies
of motor neurons in the
ventral nerve cord are well spaced, making it less ambiguous in deciding if presumptive gap junction puncta are associated with a particular motor neuron.
A translational fusion
of Punc - 7S in the GFP expression vector pPD95.67 (provided by A Fire) was injected at a concentration
of 50 ng / μl and found to express in various head neurons but not in
ventral nerve cord motor neurons.
As expected, this construct (minus F56B12) rescued forward but not backward locomotion, and UNC - 7S was strongly expressed as puncta in the
nerve ring and
ventral nerve cord, but not the dorsal
nerve cord (consistent with lack
of DA and DB motor neuron expression).
(B) UNC - 9:: GFP is expressed more uniformly in the
ventral nerve cord in unc - 7 (e5) animals, and clusters
of puncta near B cell bodies are not discernible.
Punc - 7S:: unc - 9:: gfp was expressed in unc - 7 (e5) mutants; UNC - 9:: GFP was broadly but weakly expressed as small puncta throughout the
ventral nerve cord (Figure 7J), a pattern reminiscent
of UNC - 7S expression in unc - 9 unc - 7 double mutants (Figure 7D).
The nervous system
of insects is complex, including a number
of ganglia and a
ventral, double
nerve cord.