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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Ultrastructure of Joenoides intermedia (Grassé 1952), a symbiotic parabasalid flagellate of Hodotermes mossambicus, and its comparison with other joeniid genera

subject

description

Light and electron microscopy confirms the validity of the genus Joenoides. The cell is organised like other joeniids with a triangular flagellar area of about two thousand flagella/basal bodies and three privileged basal bodies located apart at the anterior corner of the flagellar area. Characteristically, the two parabasal fibres attached to the basal body #2 are very large and composed of striated subfibres that spread in the cytoplasm, where they sustain Golgi bodies. The flagellar area is surrounded by the axostylar capitulum, which is underlain by a thick layer of preaxostylar fibres, a very strongly amplified component in this species. The axostylar trunk is composed of a bundle of microtubular ribbons forming tubes as in calonymphids. Figures of division confirm the loss of the flagellar area and the origin of spindle microtubules from the atractophores which are attached by a peduncle at the base of the parabasal fibres. The parabasal fibres and the flagellar area/atractophores were decorated by two different monoclonal antibodies.