Der Anteil von Induktor und reagierendem Gewebe an der Entwicklung des Haftfadens

Ohne ZusammenfassungDie Arbeit wurde mit Hilfe der Freiburger Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft ausgeführt.     

Regulation der Cilienmetachronie bei der “Fluchtreaktion” von Paramecium*

SYNOPSIS. Paramecia induced to perform high rates of avoiding reactions by mechanical stimulation and the action of Ba ions were instantaneously fixed with OsO₄. Quantitative evaluation of the preparations revealed, among other things, metachronal stages of the transition between the ciliary patterns of swimming backward and forward. In each of the transitory stages, metachronal waves of swimming forward were found at the anterior end and waves of swimming backward at the posterior end of the animal. This confirms the so-called Párducz-scheme of avoiding reaction for the case of homogeneous chemical stimulation as well as for mechanical stimulation.     

Rückbildung aggressiver Verhaltensweisen bei einer Höhlenform von Poecilia sphenops (Pisces,Poeciliidae)

• 1 Die ♂♂ dreier Teilpopulationen der Höhlenform von Poecilia sphenops zeigen im Vergleich zu zwei oberirdischen Populationen eine graduelle Rückbildung des Aggressionsverhaltens bis hin zum völligen Verlust bei der extremen Höhlenform, obgleich die optische Orientierung offensichtlich ungestört ist.
• 2 Das Reduktionsphänomen bleibt auch nach jahrelanger Aufzucht bei Licht sowie nach gemeinsamem Aufwachsen mit der oberirdischen Form erhalten. Beim Zusammentreffen mit dieser reagieren die Höhlenfische fast ausschließlich sexuell.
• 3 Im Dunkeln, bei Verwendung eines Infrarotgerätes, sind auch beim oberirdisch lebenden Vertreter keine aggressiven Handlungen mit Ausnahme des Schwanzschlages mehr zu beobachten. Deshalb wird eine vorwiegend optische Auslösung aggressiver Elemente angenommen.
• 4 Damit verlor nach Besiedlung des lichtlosen Biotops die Aggression bei P. sphenops offensichtlich ihren biologischen Sinn und konnte — wie dies auch entsprechend für morphologische Strukturen gilt — zurückgebildet werden.
• 5 Es wird versucht, diesen Reduktionsprozeß als Folge des Fehlens eines die Aggression erhaltenden Selektionsdruckes auf Grund von allgemeinen Vorstellungen regressiver Höhlentierevolution (Kosswig 1960, 1963) zu erklären.

     

Der „Sekundenkleber“ der Stummelfüßer

Novel insights into the “superglue” of velvet worms The biological “superglue” of velvet worms provides inspiration towards circular processing of advanced polymers. In nature, velvet worms employ a fluid, protein‐rich secretion for hunting and defense, which forms rapidly into stiff fibers. The fluid‐to‐fiber transition occurs outside the body without regulations, indicating that the “instructions” for assembly are programmed into the protein building blocks. Electrostatic interactions between oppositely charged protein domains and free ions drive protein folding, self‐organization (coacervation) and stabilization of the building blocks into nanoscale droplets. Yet, nanodroplets can be instantly transformed via simple mechanical stimulus as proteins partially unfold, merge together and form a strong network, which solidifies into a fiber. The mechanism is based on basic physico‐chemical principles. Thus, by extracting these principles, new methods of synthesizing sustainable polymer‐based materials can be developed.     

Nachtrag zur “Wurmtheorie” der Vertebraten-Evolution1

This paper presents some new arguments for the metameric-wonn-theory for the evolution of the Vertebrates (Gutmann 1966a). Metameric coelomoducts in Enteropneust larvae (Goodrich 1947) which should be interpreted as metanephridia show that the Enteropneusts can be derived from metameric Chordate-like predecessors. The myomeres of Branchiostoma are no solid organs as there exist sclerocoels. These must be interpreted as vestigial coelomic cavities. They can be cited as a proof for the metameric worm-theory. They function as a canal system, which gathers excretory stuff in the myomeres which these organs could otherwise not get rid of. The coelom-cavities are cleaned by the protonephridia in the gill region. Some additional details of the phylogenetic transformation of metameric coelom cavities into myomeres are reconstructed. It is shown that the problem of coelomic and myomeric metamerism cannot be solved in the way proposed in the literature concerned with this question. The metameric-worm-theory for the evolution of the Vertebrates pretends that metameric metanephridia were fused on the lower level of Vertebrate phylogeny and formed the archinephric ducts. A paper of Goodrich (1947) shows that there are similar cases of fused metanephridia in some Annelids. These are parallels to the postulated formation of the metanephridia in the lowest Vertebrates. The archinephric duct acquired its muscular coat when it was formed by fusion of metanephridia in the bodywall. Muscles of the body wall took over a new function by making peristaltic movements of the newly formed archinephric ducts possible. When the archinephric duct was moved back into the coelom it did not lose the still functioning muscular coat.     

“Inflammatory” Cytokines

If cytokines are constitutively expressed by and act on neurons in normal adult brain, then we may have to modify our current view that they are predominantly inflammatory mediators. We critically reviewed the literature to determine whether we could find experimental basis for such a modification. We focused on two "proinflammatory" cytokines, interleukin (IL)-1 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFalpha) because they have been most thoroughly investigated in shaping our current thinking. Evidence, although equivocal, indicates that the genes coding for these cytokines and their accessory proteins are expressed by neurons, in addition to glial cells, in normal brain. Their expression is region- and cell type-specific. Furthermore, bioactive cytokines have been extracted from various regions of normal brain. The cytokines' receptors selectively are present on all neural cell types, rendering them responsive to cytokine signaling. Blocking their action modifies multiple neural "housekeeping" functions. For example, blocking IL-1 or TNFalpha by several independent means alters regulation of sleep. This indicates that these cytokines likely modulate in the brain behavior of a normal organism. In addition, these cytokines are likely involved in synaptic plasticity, neural transmission, and Ca2+ signaling. Thus, the evidence strongly suggests that these cytokines perform neural functions in normal brain. We therefore propose that they should be thought of as neuromodulators in addition to inflammatory mediators.