The roles of haemocytes during degeneration and regeneration of crayfish muscle fibres.

Crayfish haemolymph contains three types of haemocytes with cytoplasmic granules: coagulocytes, granulocytes and amoebocytes. Muscle degeneration was induced by either a gross mechanical injury or a mild puncture injury of m. extensor carpopoditi. Granulocytes and amoebocytes were involved in the phagocytosis of disintegrating muscle fibres. Within three weeks after the gross injury the first myotubes were found. The formation of regenerated fibres started before the degenerating material was removed completely. Mild injury resulted in the formation of contraction clots, localized at the ends of a fibre and connected to a persistent external lamina in the form of an empty sheath. The external lamina sheaths were invaded by amoebocytes. They arranged themselves into a superficial layer similar to an epithelium, formed gap junctions and zonulae adherentes, and showed an increase in the number of cytoplasmic microtubules. These transformed haemocytes retained their ability to engulf material of the disintegrating fibre. In about three weeks the number of microtubules in the transformed haemocytes decreased, and newly formed contractile filaments appeared. Satellite cells are present along the normal crayfish muscle fibres. Following their activation in degenerated material, they might conceivably induce the transformation of haemocytes into myogenic cells.