Organelle survival in a foreign organism: Hydra nematocysts in the flatworm Microstomum lineare.

Nematocysts are characteristic organelles of the phylum cnidaria. They are designated kleptocnidae when sequestered in animals that feed on cnidaria. Kleptocnidae are known for more than a century. Nevertheless it is still enigmatic how selected nematocyst types survive in the predator and how they reach their final destination in the foreign body. In the free-living Platyhelminth Microstomum lineare the fate of nematocysts of the prey Hydra oligactis was analyzed at the ultrastructural level and by fluorescence microscopy using hydra polyps that had been stained in vivo with the fluorescent dyes TROMI and TRITC. M. lineare digested hydra tissue in its intestine within 30 min and all nematocyst types were phagocytosed without adherent cytoplasm by intestinal cnidophagocytes. Desmoneme and isorhiza nematocysts were digested whereas cnidophagocytes containing the venom-loaded stenotele nematocysts started to migrate out of the intestinal epithelia through the parenchyma to the epidermis thereby traversing the subintestinal and subepidermal muscle layer. Within one to two days, M. lineare began to form a muscle layer basolateral around epidermal cnidophagocytes. Epidermal stenoteles survived in M. lineare for at least four weeks. The ability of epidermal stenotele nematocysts to discharge suggest that this hydra organelle preserved its physiological properties in the new host.

Structure of nematocysts isolated from the fire corals Millepora alcicornis and Millepora complanata (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa)

Structural characteristics of discharged and undischarged nematocysts from the hydrozoans Millepora alcicornis and Millepora complanata, two fire corals collected in the Mexican Caribbean, were examined using transmission electron, scanning and light microscopy. In this study, we report for the first time images of the nematocysts found in these Mexican Caribbean venomous species. Two types of nematocysts were observed in both species, the more abundant identified as macrobasic mastigophore and the other a stenotele type. Macrobasic mastigophores were present in medium and large size classes while stenoteles appeared in only one size.