Spermatogenesis in Animals as Revealed by Electron Microscopy : VIII. Relation between the Nutritive Cells and the Developing Spermatids in a Pond Snail, Cipangopaludina malleata Reeve

This paper deals with spermatogenesis in Cipangopaludina malleata Reeve, with special regard to the relation between the nutritive cells and the developing spermatids. The nutritive cell gives rise to numerous, slender or broad, elongate pseudopodia which extend from its surface toward the seminiferous lumen. They are characteristically provided with rows of circular, oval, and elongate profiles identical in form and position with the profiles of the endoplasmic reticulum. As the elongate pseudopodia increase in number, they become more slender and more closely packed until they coalesce into a continuous sheet circumferentially disposed around the nucleus and the full length of the middle piece of the typical spermatid. Thus the mantle of the typical spermatozoon of the pond snail is formed by a thin fold of the cytoplasm of the nutritive cells. This wrapping appears to contain 16 to 18 elements of the smooth surfaced endoplasmic reticulum, which run parallel and helically (50 to 100 mµ apart). It is suggested that these constitute a conductor system for nutritional supply from the nutritive cells to the developing typical spermatids. The mantle is assumed to be a transient structure which disappears when the sperms are detached. The atypical spermatids develop while lodged in deep indentations of the surface of the nutritive cells.