HYPOTHESIS ON THE MECHANISM OF CNIDOCYST DISCHARGE

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  • 1 January 1980
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 20  (3) , 265-271
Abstract
Geometric aspects of the cnidocystic filament before invagination, during invagination and after evagination are shown. The filament is an elastic tube which, when it is intracapsular, is folded and spiraled under a constraining action. Evagination consists simply in the release of the constraining force and reversion of the filament to the primitive cylindric shape. Water seems indispensable to the process; this does not necessarily imply that a hydration take place in the filament wall. If expansion is a normal tendency of the constrained filament, eversion is a result of continuity between the wall of the filament and the capsule. Invagination of the tube during cnidogenesis may be interpreted as a mean of storing energy for the evagination.

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