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Updated: Jul 2, 2026

Morphological and Functional Evaluation of Axons and their Synapses during Axon Death in Drosophila melanogaster
Published on: March 16, 2020
New insights into the cell biology of insect axonemes
C Mencarelli1, P Lupetti, R Dallai
1Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Siena, 53100 Siena, Italy.
Abstract:
Insects do not possess ciliated epithelia, and cilia/flagella are present in the sperm tail and--as modified cilia--in mechano- and chemosensory neurons. The core cytoskeletal component of these organelles, the axoneme, is a microtubule-based structure that has been conserved throughout evolution. However, in insects the sperm axoneme exhibits distinctive structural features; moreover, several insect groups are characterized by an unusual sperm axoneme variability. Besides the abundance of morphological data on insect sperm flagella, most of the available molecular information on the insect axoneme comes from genetic studies on Drosophila spermatogenesis, and only recently other insect species have been proposed as useful models. Here, we review the current knowledge on the cell biology of insect axoneme, including contributions from both Drosophila and other model insects.
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