Fig. 8. Confocal images of whole mounts of the fifth abdominal ganglion of larvae of M. sexta and B. mori immunostained for crustacean cardioactive peptide (CCAP; red) and myoinhibitory peptide (MIP; green). (A) In M. sexta, immunostaining for CCAP demonstrated interneurons 704 and neuroendocrine cells 27, as well as processes in the neuropil and perivisceral organ (PVO). (B) In the same ganglion shown in A, double-staining for CCAP (red) and MIP (green) demonstrated that immunoreactivities to these peptides are colocalized in interneurons 704 (yellow) but not in neuroendocrine cells 27 (red). Note also that there is co-localization in much of the neuropil but not in the PVO. (C) In the abdominal ganglia of M. sexta larvae a few hours before ecdysis, the MIPimmunostaining of interneurons 704 and of processes in the neuropil is strong. (D) In larvae at ecdysis, the MIP-immunostaining of cells and processes is very weak, suggesting that during ecdysis the MIP-like peptide has been released. (E) In B. mori, MIP-immunostaining labeled two pairs of lateral cells. (F) CCAP-immunostaining of the same ganglion labeled anterior and posterior lateral somata comparable to cells 704 and 27, respectively. (G) The double-staining of this ganglion demonstrated that CCAP and MIP immunoreactivity is co-localized in interneurons 704 (yellow) but not in cells 27 (red) nor in the posterior lateral MIP-IR cells (green). Scale bars, 100 µm.

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