A teloblast is a large cell in the embryos of

clitellate The Clitellata are a class of annelid worms, characterized by having a clitellum - the 'collar' that forms a reproductive cocoon during part of their life cycles. The clitellates comprise around 8,000 species. Unlike the class of Polychaeta, th ...

annelid The annelids (Annelida , from Latin ', "little ring"), also known as the segmented worms, are a large phylum, with over 22,000 extant species including ragworms, earthworms, and leeches. The species exist in and have adapted to various ecol ...

s which asymmetrically divide to form many smaller cells known as

blast cells In cell biology, a precursor cell, also called a blast cell or simply blast, is a partially differentiated cell, usually referred to as a unipotent cell that has lost most of its stem cell properties. A precursor cell is also known as a proge ...

. These blast cells further proliferate and differentiate to form the segmental tissues of the annelid. Teloblasts are well studied in

leeches Leeches are segmented parasitic or predatory worms that comprise the subclass Hirudinea within the phylum Annelida. They are closely related to the oligochaetes, which include the earthworm, and like them have soft, muscular segmented b ...

, though they are also present in the other major class of clitellates: the oligochaetes.

Developmental role and morphology

All teloblasts are specified from the D quadrant macromere after the second round of divisions post-fertilization. There are five pairs of teloblasts, one on each side of the embryo. Four of the teloblasts (N, O, P, and Q) give rise to

ectodermal The ectoderm is one of the three primary germ layers formed in early embryonic development. It is the outermost layer, and is superficial to the mesoderm (the middle layer) and endoderm (the innermost layer). It emerges and originates from the o ...

tissue and one pair (M) gives rise to

mesodermal The mesoderm is the middle layer of the three germ layers that develops during gastrulation in the very early development of the embryo of most animals. The outer layer is the ectoderm, and the inner layer is the endoderm.Langman's Medical Embry ...

tissue. The column of blast cells arising out of each teloblast is known as a bandlet. All five bandlets coalesce into one germinal band on each side of the embryo, extending out from the teloblast towards the head (in the

rostral Rostral may refer to: Anatomy * Rostral (anatomical term), situated toward the oral or nasal region * Rostral bone, in ceratopsian dinosaurs * Rostral organ, of certain fish * Rostral scale, in snakes and scaled reptiles Other uses * Rostral ...

direction). The teloblasts are located at the rear of the embryo. Teloblasts have two separate

cytoplasmic In cell biology, the cytoplasm is all of the material within a eukaryotic cell, enclosed by the cell membrane, except for the cell nucleus. The material inside the nucleus and contained within the nuclear membrane is termed the nucleoplasm. The ...

domains: the teloplasm and the vitelloplasm. The teloplasm contains the

nucleus Nucleus ( : nuclei) is a Latin word for the seed inside a fruit. It most often refers to: * Atomic nucleus, the very dense central region of an atom *Cell nucleus, a central organelle of a eukaryotic cell, containing most of the cell's DNA Nucl ...

, ribosomes,

mitochondria A mitochondrion (; ) is an organelle found in the cells of most Eukaryotes, such as animals, plants and fungi. Mitochondria have a double membrane structure and use aerobic respiration to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is used ...

, and other subcellular

organelles In cell biology, an organelle is a specialized subunit, usually within a cell, that has a specific function. The name ''organelle'' comes from the idea that these structures are parts of cells, as organs are to the body, hence ''organelle,'' the ...

. The vitelloplasm contains mostly

yolk Among animals which produce eggs, the yolk (; also known as the vitellus) is the nutrient-bearing portion of the egg whose primary function is to supply food for the development of the embryo. Some types of egg contain no yolk, for example ...

platelets Platelets, also called thrombocytes (from Greek θρόμβος, "clot" and κύτος, "cell"), are a component of blood whose function (along with the coagulation factors) is to react to bleeding from blood vessel injury by clumping, thereby ...

. Only the teloplasm gets passed onto the daughter stem cells after

cell division Cell division is the process by which a parent cell divides into two daughter cells. Cell division usually occurs as part of a larger cell cycle in which the cell grows and replicates its chromosome(s) before dividing. In eukaryotes, there ...

O/P specification

The O and P teloblasts are specified from two separate but identical precursors, which form an equivalence group These two precursor cells are termed O/P cells for their ability to become either O or P teloblasts. Signals from the surrounding cells act to specify which fate the teloblasts and their progeny take on. Interactions with the q bandlet, however transient, can induce the p fate in the adjacent o/p bandlet. The M bandlet has been shown to In some species (i.e. Helobdella triserialis), the provisional epithelium covering the cells plays a role in inducing the O fate. In the absence of cell-cell interactions, the O/P precursors will become O teloblasts. O and P bandlets exhibit very different mitotic patterns (see figure) which are used to identify them in experimental manipulations.

Segmental fates

The N and Q teloblasts contribute two blast cells per segment, one making up the anterior half of the segment, the second making up the posterior half of the segment. The O, P, and M lineages contribute one blast cell per segment, but the contributions from each blast cell spans a segmental boundary. These segmental boundaries were discovered by injecting teloblasts with cell lineage tracers after a few blast cells have already been generated. During development, the N and Q bandlets, which eventually have 64 blast cells each, slide past the O,P,and M bandlet, which only have 32 cells. Thus, the segmental boundaries within each bandlet are already specified before all the bandlets come into complete register.{{cite journal , vauthors=Weisblat DA, Shankland M , title = Cell lineage and segmentation in the leech , journal = Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci , volume = 312 , issue = 1153 , pages = 39–56 , year = 1985 , pmid = 2869529 , doi = 10.1098/rstb.1985.0176, doi-access = free

References

Developmental biology