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Full-Text Articles in Marine Biology
Epidermal Threads Reveal The Origin Of Hagfish Slime, Yu Zeng, David C. Plachetzki, Kristen Nieders, Hannah Campbell, Marissa Cartee, M. Sabrina Pankey, Kennedy Guillen, Douglas Fudge
Epidermal Threads Reveal The Origin Of Hagfish Slime, Yu Zeng, David C. Plachetzki, Kristen Nieders, Hannah Campbell, Marissa Cartee, M. Sabrina Pankey, Kennedy Guillen, Douglas Fudge
Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research
When attacked, hagfishes produce a soft, fibrous defensive slime within a fraction of a second by ejecting mucus and threads into seawater. The rapid setup and remarkable expansion of the slime make it a highly effective and unique form of defense. How this biomaterial evolved is unknown, although circumstantial evidence points to the epidermis as the origin of the thread- and mucus-producing cells in the slime glands. Here, we describe large intracellular threads within a putatively homologous cell type from hagfish epidermis. These epidermal threads averaged ~2 mm in length and ~0.5 μm in diameter. The entire hagfish body is …